By Gloria Lloyd 
News Editor 
glorialloyd@callnewspapers.com 

St. Louis County finalized a deal to relocate the Affton Southwest Precinct from Affton to Sappington this month, after a snafu with the Port Authority that could have scuttled the deal.

The contract was signed the first week of the year after the County Council unanimously passed it and could close as soon as this week.

“You’ve got a new police station on the way,” 6th District Councilman Ernie Trakas, R-Oakville, said at a Jan. 10 meeting of the Tesson Ferry Republican Club.

But it won’t be much of a move, with operations switching from the old precinct at 9928 Gravois Road in Affton to the new location in Sappington at 11530 Gravois.

The new 3rd District Precinct will hopefully be finished by 2021, Trakas noted.

For the foreseeable future, however, the Affton Southwest Precinct’s operations have already moved out of the Affton headquarters after a roof leak was confirmed to have led to mold.

For the last month, the precinct has been headquartered in a shopping plaza at 9059 Watson Road in Crestwood next to Friar Tuck and Monkey Joe’s.

“We will be in the Crestwood building for awhile,” police spokesman Sgt. Shawn McGuire said. “We have no timeline as of right now.”

The new land for the station was the site of Sappington Garden Shop for decades.

The shop closed in December.

Although the original plan called for the county to buy seven acres and sell three, the size of the building is still taking shape and might take up all but one acre of the site, Trakas said.

If that happens, the extra acre will be turned into a park.