Gilroy City Council awards contract to furnish the new $26.2
million department to Santa Cruz’s Palace Art and Supply
Police are in the market to purchase furniture for the new department headquarters.
Assistant Police Chief Lanny Brown spent Monday crunching numbers and reviewing floor plans for the site, trying to keep furniture requests within the city’s $300,000 budget.
The task comes as construction nears 80-percent completion for the 48,900 square-foot project located between Dowdy and Rosanna Street.
“We went looking at a slightly more cost effective line with a good life cycle,” said Brown, who serves as co-construction manager for the project. “It’s got to be functional and ergonomically correct.”
If you’re imagining back-massaging, temperature-regulating, leather desk chairs – think again. GPD staff will be rolling their old chairs over to the new department.
The city council awarded a contract to Palace Art and Supply in Santa Cruz to furnish the new site with work stations, conference tables, and chairs for the community conference rooms.
So far, the only check cut has been for a consultant who will design the rooms with ergonomically correct furniture to cut down on work related injuries, Brown said.
The new police station has a total budget of $26.2 million and in an effort to trim a few edges, additional furniture for the meeting rooms was cut, and lower-grade work stations are being chosen.
Much of the equipment in the current building will be left behind for staff in the emergency operations center, fire command and public education departments. Some Community Service staff will also be housed there.
The city council has already awarded $230,000 for a new telephone system in the new building. However, the system feeds all city phones at 14 different sites. The phone system was moved into the new building because it will be the most secure location in the city, built above earthquake standards, explained Dave Churlick, the city’s information technology director.
Council has not yet approved a computer budget for the new department, however, Churlick estimates the cost will run about $70,000 for about 70 new Dell computer stations.
Currently, the computers at GPD are more than four years old and are past due to be cycled out, he explained.
With the current construction pace, police should move into the new facility by the fall.
