Friday, April 26, 2024
The city could begin turning dirt for a new free-standing police station in the first quarter of next year.
The $13 million, 29,000 square foot public safety building will be constructed on land the city purchased on Loop 567 across from Reunion Court.
The City Council heard a presentation about the planned facility at its regular meeting last week and is expected to follow City Manager Chris Coffman’s recommendation to issue Certificates of Obligation (CO) for the project late this year. The CO’s will not require voter approval.
A property tax rate increase of 2 cents per $100 valuation is expected for the 2022 fiscal year, according to Coffman, but after that, it will drop.
The city will be able to absorb the annual cost of the debt thanks to about $240,000 coming off the city’s debt rolls in 2022.
The Granbury Police Department has been housed in increasingly cramped headquarters inside City Hall on West Bridge Street since the building was built about 15 years ago.
The public safety building will cost $348.80 per square foot and will be fortified to withstand, to the extent possible, assaults from severe weather and anyone with evil intent.
The city is working with Pierce, Goodwin, Alexander & Linville (PGAL), the same company that built the McKinney Police Station, which withstood an attack in August 2010.
Although Patrick Gray Sharp showed up that day “hoping for a massacre,” McKinney police officials said, only Sharp lost his life in the incident. No officers were injured.
The 29-year-old Sharp parked a pickup truck and trailer loaded with ammunition close to McKinney’s police department and then set fire to the truck.
He was also armed with an assault rifle, a shotgun and a handgun and fired about 100 rounds at the building, investigators said.
BUILT TO WITHSTAND
PGAL and Granbury police officials worked together for several months to plan the new facility, with an eye toward future expansion and meeting the city’s needs for decades to come.
The police station “will have features you didn’t see 15 years ago,” said Mayor Pro Tem Tony Mobly.
“People weren’t blowing up buildings (then). It will have protective glass. It won’t be explosion-proof, but it will be explosion- and impact-resistant. It will make a huge difference to what they have now.”
Mobly said he is excited about the police station and the possibility of starting construction early in 2020.
“That’s what we’re hoping for, but a lot of things would have to go perfect,” he said, noting that getting such a project off the ground is “a long process” involving financing, engineering, architecture and figuring out “the geographical part of it” – whether dirt will have to be hauled in or out.
At last week’s regular council meeting, PGAL CEO Jeff Gerber gave a slide presentation detailing a proposed floor plan and six different elevations using that same floor plan. He stated that the primary differences are with the roofs, window shapes, sizes and configurations, and color.
In addition to secure offices for police personnel, the building will have: men’s and women’s locker rooms; two vehicle bays, one of which will be used as a sally port, and the other for vehicle inspections and evidence retrieval; and a 100-person-capacity training room that will be outside the secured areas and can be used for community education and outreach events.
