FLPD wants new $100M headquarters
Officials say the agency has outgrown the 1958 station
FORT LAUDERDALE – The elevators are ancient, the air conditioner breaks on a regular basis, the roof leaks, the offices are cramped, the basement floods — and so does the parking lot.
Fort Lauderdale police officers and the police chief say there are plenty of reasons they’re asking for a new police headquarters. On March 12, Fort Lauderdale voters will make the decision.
If the $100 million bond issue passes, property taxes would go up for 30 years to pay for a new police headquarters and high-security parking garage. They’d be built in the next few years at the existing property, 1300 W. Broward Blvd., just a bit east of Interstate 95.
Some have questioned the cost, which is much higher than other agencies in the region spent on new police stations. Mayor Dean Trantalis said he thinks it could be built for less.
City officials said when they design the station in detail, it might not be as expensive and they could spend less than the $100 million.
“I believe that the price for the
station can be achieved well below the bond amount,” Trantalis wrote in his January newsletter to residents. “And we will know more as details continue to be worked out.”
Here’s a look inside the 1958 Fort Lauderdale police headquarters:
Mounting evidence
Like many older buildings, the police station has seen its share of leaks and floods. And there’s plenty of evidence of past water intrusion, including carpet stains and a faint scent of mildew.
“We had to do an entire mold remediation in this room,” Fort Lauderdale police Capt. Frank Sousa said. “It stopped our training for weeks because we had to move out of it.”
The building also doesn’t have modern safety elements, such as fire sprinklers.
“The physical plant of the building is old and much of the equipment is original,” consultant HDR Engineers wrote after assessing it.
Cramped quarters
“You know it’s bad when you’re storing stuff in the bathroom,” Lt. Adam Solomon said, gesturing to shelves of boxes and supplies around the corner from urinals. “That speaks volumes.”
The 85,000-square-foot building has a basement and three floors.
But it’s not large enough for a police force that’s grown to 720 employees, including 520 officers, Police Chief Rick Maglione says.
Offices are cramped, with several desks in spaces intended for one or two, officials said.
“Due to age practicality and size limitations, the building fails to meet current or future standards of a modern law enforcement facility,” a city memo from December says.
Some employees have to work off-site, Sousa said, and some storage is at other locations.
A new station would be much bigger, a “one stop shop” where all activities and storage could be brought under one roof, he said.
An analysis by HDR Engineeering found a need for about 200,000 square feet, and a predicted need of about 225,000 square feet by 2030.
Details of a new building are not known and would finalized if the bond issue passes.
HDR estimated a 168,401square-foot police building could be constructed for $68.4 million. A 750-space garage would cost about $18 million, HDR estimated.
Parking pond
Behind the police station, a parking lot for employees floods badly, Sousa said.
“I’ve seen water up to here on a vehicle,” he said, gesturing well above the wheel well of a van.
A proposed construction plan by HDR Engineering shows a parking garage where the existing station is.
The new, four-story headquarters would be situated to the west, along Broward Boulevard and Southwest 14th Avenue, where a small parks and recreation office stands.
The police station would be constructed around the existing station, to minimize disruptions.
The city’s fleet operations are expected to remain at the property, behind the station.
Hurricane fears
When Hurricane Irma was headed to South Florida and predicted to be a maximum strength, Category 5, the city had to shut down the police station.
A replacement police station would double as an emergency operations center, officials said. It could be used for staging a response to a major hurricane or any other major incident.
For now, the command center is relatively low-tech, with largescreen televisions on the wall, and computer monitors on the tables.
A high-tech “real time crime center” would provide video feeds from cameras throughout the city, officials said.
Step right in
The elevators are among the oldest in Broward County, according to civil engineer Ralph Zeltman, a member of the city’s infrastructure task force.
The panel with the elevator button is loosely attached to the wall.
Many officers choose to take the stairs, Sousa said.
“They’re too afraid.”
Time for class
There’s nothing flashy about the training room: Tables, chairs and a whiteboard.
Yellow cords dangle from ceiling tiles.
“It’s just not a state-of-the-art training room,” Sousa said.
The plans call for a large, soundproof training room of 1,800 square feet, which could be divided into three classrooms. The room would be equipped with a modern shooting simulator for training.
Computer room
It’s arguably the most important room in the building — the computer hub.
“This is the brains of the operation,” said Alan Ragoonanan, who maintains the station and was likened to the innovative problemsolving “MacGyver.”
The doorway is obstructed by a large, portable air conditioning duct that is rigged to blow cold air onto the equipment.
“We can’t take the chance of it getting hot,” Sousa said.
Chill out
The air conditioning system is vintage. Ragoonanan said it’s the building’s original system from 1958.
Because of its age, he said, it’s “repaired once or twice a week.”
In his memo, Zeltman said workers manually empty the condensed water from the unit every day, because there “is no drainage to accommodate this need.”
Target practice
On the third floor, a firing range gives officers the opportunity to practice. Because of its limited size, most firearm training is done elsewhere, Sousa said.
The range gets wet every time it rains, Ragoonanan said, because the building’s roof leaks.
The new police station would have a 13,000-square-foot firing range, office and storage facility, either as a standalone building or inside the headquarters, a space analysis says.
60-year-old bathrooms
Showers, bathrooms and locker rooms in the station show their age.
Zeltman said some of the bathrooms don’t have hot water.
The bathrooms, like the hallways and doorways, are not built to modern codes that would make them accessible to people in wheelchairs, he said in a memo based on his observations.
Some, but not all, of the older cast-iron piping has been replaced, according to Zeltman.
Election soon
Voters have two options: Vote in person on March 12, or vote by mail before that.
There will be no early voting for this election.
Voters can request a mail-in ballot from the Broward elections office up until Feb. 5. But any ballots that get stuck in slow mail and don’t arrive at the elections office by the time polls close on election day voting won’t be counted.
The ballot for Fort Lauderdale voters also will have a $200 million parks improvement bond issue.
The Fort Lauderdale Council of Civic Associations voted recently to support the police bond issue.
The $100 million price tag is an estimate, and includes money for specialty vehicles such as bomb trucks and command center vehicles, city documents say.
For a $300,000 home, the parks and police bond issues together would add $150 to the property tax bill.
Just the police bond would add $50 a year to the property tax bill for 30 years.