Security, space and efficiency are not just words at the
soon-to-be new home of the Morgan Hill Police Department. They mean
it. The 43,000 square-foot building at 16200 Vineyard Ave., just
north of Tennant Avenue, was always spacious but new Homeland
Security regulations and special police needs caused designers to
build in strict security measures and realign space.
Security, space and efficiency are not just words at the soon-to-be new home of the Morgan Hill Police Department. They mean it. The 43,000 square-foot building at 16200 Vineyard Ave., just north of Tennant Avenue, was always spacious but new Homeland Security regulations and special police needs caused designers to build in strict security measures and realign space.
MHPD Lt. Terrie Booten, who led the City Council on a tour of the facility Wednesday, said she had good news.
“This project is on time and on budget,” Booten said with obvious pride. She has acted as project manager for the building’s transformation and dealt with the daily headaches familiar to any home renovation veteran.
“But we work through them and it always turns out all right,” Booten said.
The city paid $6.4 million for the new and never-occupied building, largely complete except for carpet and doors. It had been built for a printing company that went out of business and could not take possession.
However, the department has special needs in detention cells, a secure indoor parking area for off-loading prisoners, records and evidence rooms besides the normal office arrangement of lockers, break, training and exercise rooms. Best of all is a light-filled, comfortable space for dispatchers used to working in a cave-like atmosphere.
Total project costs will be $9.45 million. Besides purchase and tenant improvement costs of $1,699,000, the city paid $400,000 for professional services and $837,000 for furniture, equipment and other costs.
Determined not to have the same experience as the post office which recently found a car in its lobby, space designers took steps to keep vehicles in the parking lot where they belong.
A row of thick, concrete bollards have been installed along the front windows and the lobby entrance will be protected by several large, heavy planters, filled with flowers and greenery to disguise their utilitarian function. At 5×5 feet and weighing one ton a piece, visitors to the building’s lobby should feel safe and protected, Booten said.
The building will be identified, not only by its distinctively modern exterior and canopy, but by a roadside monument sign of the same modern design and, most obvious of all, the police star, removed from the current station in the middle of the downtown at Monterey Road and West Main Avenue and retooled to match the new department star.
The Vineyard Avenue station can be reached from Tennant Avenue (Animal Care Center and SpeeDee Tune up) or from Church Street, turning east onto Mast Avenue and south on Vineyard. Claims that the building would be out of sight and difficult to find were overwhelmed by the opportunity to buy and retrofit the building at a reasonable cost. Gilroy is planning to spend $26.7 million on its new station.
Councilman Greg Sellers said in 2003, when former Chief Jerry Galvin found the building, that he was concerned there would be less police presence in the downtown area if the department moved south. Downtown has the highest crime rate in the city, he said.
“There will always be a police presence downtown,” Galvin promised then. “It’s a high priority. And, during summer months we’ll have the bike patrols back.”
Patrol officers are seldom in the station, Galvin said. “They are out in the community, patrolling.”
Homeland Security regulations have increased the safety of police employees too, Booten said. Windows to the records room, off the lobby will be bullet-resistant and walls are made of a bullet resistant fiberboard.
“Police departments are designed totally differently from before,” said Bruce Cumming, who is serving as interim police chief. He is well pleased with the building and has enjoyed showing it off to visiting chiefs, all of whom, he said, were impressed with the building’s interior arrangement, designed to meet police regulations and improve efficiency of the police themselves.
The building received a seismic upgrade with angled beams supporting the roof in several places spots.
“Regulations say that police departments and hospitals must be seismically upgraded,” Cumming said. “Otherwise the building was A-number one.”
Because of the increased space, all records, now dispersed between the police department and the corporation yard, will be held on site, improving access and efficiency.
Key cards and locked areas will increase security.
Because dispatch will be located away from the lobby, members of the public needing entrance to the station can communicate via intercom; dispatchers can open the door by a buzzer, as is often done in apartment buildings.
“We’ve had some people chased to the station, or victims of road rage, come to the station. Dispatchers need a way to let them in quickly,” Booten said.
Finally, she said, the department will have a big enough squad room where up to 48 people can meet at one time.
“Before, they were spilling out into the hall,” Booten said.
Report writing cubicles stocked with phones and computers will be separate from the sometimes noisy squad room .
One corner of the building is dedicated to the Office of Emergency Services, with room for training, storage and an office for Bob Kelley, who heads the department.
Ham and REAC radio operators will have their own small room to use during emergencies, also off the OES corner.
All interview rooms will have covert audio and visual coverage, digitally, that will work on demand, unlike current aging equipment.
Two “soft” interview rooms for families and children will be staffed with squishy stuffed animals and one will get the treatment from high school students. The Live Oak art department has agreed to paint one with blue skies, clouds, perhaps a bird or rabbit or two to ease the trauma children can experience in a police situation.
The new arrangement includes two sober cells, one gang cell, one garden variety cell and one cell with handicapped access, a requirement; all just inside the closed garage.
Evidence collection is kept near the garage and has its own heating, air conditioning and ventilation system (one of 22). The refrigerator has six locking compartments to keep chain of evidence pure. The building will also offer secured rooms for narcotics and firearms plus an emergency generator for the entire building.
THE MOVE
Booten said construction should be mostly completed by May 7, and the department will move from its cramped building on Monterey Road at West Main Avenue, over the June 10-13 weekend. Dispatching and communications will be in a trailer during the move.
“It’s limited but it should work,” Booten said.
Booten said the increased space and formally designated space will allow department employees to perform their duties more effectively.
Mayor Dennis Kennedy said he was pleased with what the building’s space will allow.
“We are adding service capabilities we didn’t have before,” Kennedy said.
DETAILS
The department will occupy 35,000 square-feet, leaving an 8,000 square-foot space available for rent to an appropriate agency. None has materialized so far.
The improvements were funded from police impact fees – money charged developers for each housing unit built – plus money the Redevelopment Agency recently paid the city for a vacant lot behind City Hall. The land was reserved for a new library funded by state bond money, though a library on that site is no longer a sure thing as the city is considering an alternative site.
The building itself was purchased with lease revenue bonds that will be repaid from the impact fees and the general fund. The police department is one beneficiary of sales taxes paid in Morgan Hill, along with fire protection.
The vacated police department on Monterey Road will not stay vacant for long. Geno and Cindy Acevedo are buying it and expect to open El Toro Brewing Co., a family-oriented brew pub and restaurant, in 2005.
