MORGAN HILL
– Security, space and efficiency are not just words being tossed
around at the soon-to-be new home of the Morgan Hill Police
Department. They mean it.
MORGAN HILL – Security, space and efficiency are not just words being tossed around at the soon-to-be new home of the Morgan Hill Police Department. They mean it.
The 43,000-square-foot building always has been spacious, but new Homeland Security Department regulations and special police needs prompted designers to build in strict security measures and realign space.
MHPD Lt. Terrie Booten, who recently led the City Council on a tour of the facility, 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 carpets and doors. It was 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, in addition to the normal office arrangement break, training and exercise rooms, and lockers. There also is a light-filled, comfortable space for dispatchers accustomed to working in a cave-like atmosphere.
The project will cost $9.45 million.
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 posts 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.
The station, at 16200 Vineyard Ave. just north of Tennant Avenue, is off the beaten path compared with the current downtown station, but 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 he was concerned there would be less police presence in the downtown area, which has the highest crime rate in the city, if the department moved south.
“There will always be a police presence downtown,” former Police Chief Jerry Galvin promised. “It’s a high priority, and during summer months we’ll have the bike patrols back.”
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. Key cards and locked areas will increase security.
“Police departments are designed totally differently from before,” said Bruce Cumming, who is serving as interim police chief. He is 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.
With the increased space, all records – now dispersed between the police department and the corporation yard – will be held on site, improving access and efficiency.
Because the dispatch center 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 squad room that can accommodate up to 48 people.
