Los Banos moving forward with plans for new $24 million police department headquarters

The City of Los Banos is moving forward with plans to build a new $24 million police headquarters on a 3.6 acre plot of land on G Street, just west of the courts building.

Gary Brizzee, acting city manager, said the hope for the new 26,400 square-foot building is to better serve the department and community by establishing a centralized location. The department currently operates out of two buildings.

The building, which would be built from the ground up, would open in October 2023. Construction is expected to start in May 2022.

“The location of the site creates a criminal justice campus environment and provides our residents and staff convenient access to both the court and police department in one central location, ” Brizzee explained.

Currently, the department’s main facility is at 945 5th St. and has housed police staff since 1969. The second building at 535 J St is the police annex building, which used to be an old bank and is half a block away from the main facility.

The department has operated out of the J Street building since 1999, housing police detectives, code enforcement, IT staff, and the department’s crime analyst.

Brizzee said the goal is to move staff out of the two facilities in the new building. The city will maintain ownership of the two facilities, and ultimately decide what to do with those two facilities.

Moving into one centralized location will be better in terms of space as there’s “too many people in one space” and has made “operating at the two facilities inefficient and challenging,” Brizzee said.

“Literally there’s not enough space for us to have enough computers for all the new employees we have to write reports or that desk space for all the people that we have — our new facility will have that,” Brizzee said.

“For example, over the years we have had to turn one of the existing restrooms into an office space at our main police department because we physically ran out of room, as our police department has been growing along with the growth of the city.”

City Council approved of the project funding back in October 2020. Some of the project funds would come from the Measure P half-cent sales tax, police capital improvement funds and Measure H.

The city expects to award a contract to a design build entity in October 2021, moving into the design phase in November 2021, said Scott Murphy, project director for the new police facility.

The new building will essentially be a one-stop shop, housing administrative services, code enforcement, crime analysis, investigations, a jail/temporary division, patrol division, Police Activities League, property/evidence records and traffic.

The police department update was an informational item, so no action was required by the council.

Mayor Tom Faria, however, did express his approval for the project, especially considering the idea was first brought up in 1999. In 2018, the city began an assessment for developing and constructing a new facility.

“I’m very pleased to see this happening,” Faria said. “It is way overdue and pleased to be a part of making it happen and for council bringing this beautiful project to fruition.”

This story was originally published April 8, 2021 at 12:55 PM.