SPD reveals plans for new Public Safety Center

UPDATE 4/19/2017 6 PM:

The Salinas Police Department is getting a new home base.

On Tuesday night, the Salinas City Council unanimously approved spending $49 million for a new facility. It will be located at 312 E. Alisal Street, in the Alisal Marketplace area. Officials said it will be three times larger than the current police station. That current station on Lincoln Avenue was built in 1958.

“We outgrew this building a long, long time ago,” said Cmdr. Stan Cooper. “Not only in size, but just in the general composure of what is left of a shell of this building. It’s dilapidated in many senses. It was never designed to hold the amount of people that we currently have and that the city needs to eventually grow to. It was never designed for the amount of infrastructure, being computers and the use of cell phones and everything else that we take as an everyday commodity now. All of that was forced into a building that was designed many, many years ago.”

Cmdr. Cooper is working with the development of the new facility. He gave KION a tour of the current facility, pointing out areas where there have been leaks, storage issues and security problems with holding cells.

“The biggest issue with this area is the lack of security,” Cooper said. “Every employee ends up walking through here.”

City leaders say the development is the biggest project the city has ever undertaken. The city obtained the property through a trade deal with the county. We asked city leaders why they decided to use another property rather than the existing one on Lincoln Avenue. They said it wasn’t feasible because there wasn’t enough ground space and because the current facility has a floor below ground level, the work would take much longer. The new facility is located in the center of Salinas, which makes it easily assessible for many.

“I think you’re going to see the services will be better,” Mayor Joe Gunter said. “The employees will be in a better, safer working condition and we’re going to be able to step up our service and improve the looks of this city.”

Construction management firms Griffin Structures and Swinerton Buildings, along with architects from LPA, Inc. are working with the city and police to finalize the plans.

“Modern police stations are much more aspirational spaces that bring the public into the building, so that they become a tool to be able to really develop community placing efforts,” said Jim McClaren with McClaren, Wilson & Lawrie. “They also have support spaces just outside the building for people to come if they’re in distress, if they want to make Craigslist transactions safely, all kinds of activities that police stations would have never been identified in the past for. So within the building itself there is a laboratory space that would have current technology for firearms investigations, for fingerprint investigations, most of the technical needs that you find in a modern law enforcement facility as well as proper places for investigations and follow-up, places you can make sure people are able to meet with investigators, whether they are suspects or victims completely separate.”

The firms have worked with the City before. Swinerton worked with the City to complete the Monterey Street Garage, LPA worked with Griffin on the Watsonville Civic Plaza project, and LPA worked with the City and McClaren Wilson & Lawrie Inc. on the Police Department needs assessment completed in 2014.

Groundbreaking is slated for next summer with completion set for October 2019. The project is being paid for with voter-approved Measure G funds.

“This is something our community deserves and our police department deserves,” said Chief Adele Frese. “The ability to have space in which we get to meet the community, engage the community, work out problems together, cannot be over-valued.”

ORIGINAL POST:

The Salinas City Council has selected several firms to design and build a new public safety center for Salinas police.

Construction management firms Griffin Structures and Swinerton Builders, along with architects from LPA Inc., will work on the new facility, which will be at 312 E. Alisal St.

The current police station, on Lincoln Street, was built in 1958 and is in poor condition with issues like leaks.

“This will be a big step forward,” said Police Chief Adele Frese. “Our job has grown and changed a lot over the decades, with new technologies, new policing techniques, and much more. A modern station is a key part of fulfilling today’s mission.”

City leaders held a news conference on Wednesday morning with more details about the new facility.