New Cumberland Public Safety Complex nears completion
Combined police, fire, rescue headquarters almost ready to be occupied
– The town’s new Public Safety Complex is largely complete with only a short punch list of landscaping items remaining on the contractor’s to do list but don’t expect a ribbon cutting ceremony at the building just yet.
Robert Anderson, the town’s Public Works director, said Friday that there is still equipment installation work being conducted in the building by contractors for the town’s police department and rescue service, and it will be up to those agencies to determine when they will make the move into their new spaces in the complex.
“The building is ready for use but we do have other town entities in there working,” Anderson said of the ongoing projects to install communications equipment, security and information systems and other public safety fixtures.
All of the building’s structural work, utilities, and furnishings were completed and installed by the Calson Construction Corp. of Johnston while it reached the complex’s substantial complete status and the remaining landscaping work around the grounds of the 2.5-acre site will be finished
with the arrival of spring, according to Anderson.
The parking lot has already received its final coat of paving and even the parking spaces were painted before this winter’s weather turned severe.
The police and rescue departments will begin planning their move into the building after the town’s commissioning agent conducts a final certification of the building, and all of its operating systems, as part of the construction agreement. That check is expected to be conducted next week, according to Anderson.
The building’s heating and utility systems have all been functioning since last November, and will only need to be certified as operational as part of the final review.
Having observed the progress of the project since the foundations went into the ground, Anderson gave high marks to the result of the work conducted by the
building’s architect, Kaestle & Boos Associates, Calson and its subcontractors.
“I love it. It looks like a modern municipal building. It has a very nice color scheme and very nice flooring,” he said.
The floor outside the complex’s community meeting room features a set of six inlaid bronze medallions , one for each of the town’s villages — Valley Falls, Berkeley, Ashton, Cumberland Hill and Arnold Mills, Anderson said. The meeting space will also be an asset for the public at the complex, and the town’s police department and rescue personnel will have state-ofthe-art public safety facilities, from the emergency vehicle garages and indoor sally port
for transferring subjects from police vehicles to the new detention facilities, and office and administration rooms, he noted. There will also be new communication equipment to link with the district fire stations and other emergency equipment updates.
“It is a state-of-the-art facility and it came in within budget,” he said.
Voters appropriated a total of $11.3 million for the complex while funding the project and former Mayor William Murray got the actual work started, after identifying and arranging the purchase of the privately-owned site at 1379 Diamond Hill Road, right across the street from the existing John J. Partington Police Headquarters
building at 1380 Diamond Hill Road.
The new complex is also expected to be dedicated to the late John Partington — the town’s former police chief, a federal marshal and Public Safety Commissioner for Providence — when it is opened.
While the local contract work has continued in the complex, some people have thought the building already open while stopping there looking for the police department as several did on Friday.
Signs have been posted at the new building noting that the police department is still operating across the street and also noting that the property is not open to the public
while remaining a work site.
As for the scheduling of a future ribbon cutting ceremony to be attended by the town’s new Mayor Jeff Mutter, the public safety chiefs, department members, contractor representatives, town officials and residents, Anderson said that is not likely to happen until the move into the building is completed by all of its resident agencies sometime in April or even early May.
“That will be totally up to the chiefs to determine,” Anderson said while noting the police department, fire departments and rescue service will work that schedule out.