Calif. Police Department to Move into New Headquarters

A sudden plan to transfer the headquarters of the Fresno Police Department into a new building moved forward Thursday in a rent-to-own lease with a local developer.

The Fresno City Council approved a $30 million lease on 2314 Mariposa Street, which is across the Mariposa Mall from the aging current headquarters. The front doors of each building are less than 100 feet from each other.

After making all the payments in the 21-year lease, the city can buy the 50,545-square-foot building, plus about 15,000 square feet of parking, for $1, according to the agreement with development firm Lance-Kashian.

The move starts a ticking clock on the demolition of the current headquarters. That structure, built in 1960, has asbestos in the walls and is in need of major work on its ventilation system, according to city staffers.

The City Hall Annex — the red-brick building on Fresno Street used by police — holds historic value as the an old City Hall and will remain intact.

The City Council plans to borrow $9 million to make improvements on the new building, which sparked the most scrutiny during the meeting. Those dollars would be borrowed together with money for Fire Station 12 and a new dispatch center for a total of $47 million.

Borrowing money for those projects comes at a time when the city has already taken out a $100 million bond to pay for the city’s mounting deferred road maintenance.

Councilmember Miguel Arias said he understood the police department’s needs for a new building, but said the process was unusual.

“I’m opposed to how we got here,” he said.

Unlike the plans for the headquarters, the City Council had a robust discussion about the fire station and dispatch center and how they fit into the budget during public meetings.

But the police station saw none of that, only appearing on the agenda when it became public last Friday.

City Manager Georgeanne White said the members of the council are aware of the state of the old building.

“This should not have caught anybody by surprise,” she said.

The 1960 building’s air conditioning often goes out and, given the nature of police work, officers cannot be sent to work from home. The asbestos in the walls also means the work to fix the ventilation can’t be done safely.

“In addition, we have electrical issues in that building, where if you plug in an electric pencil sharpener at the same time that you’re using another electrical thing that you’ll blow a fuse,” White said. “There are a host of issues with that building just because of the age of the building, and it has passed its useful life.”

Officers routinely come into the office in the morning and wipe dust off their desks, unsure if that dust is toxic, according to Sgt. Amanda Galaviz.

“We have grown out of this building, and so it’s something that we as employees need, not just for a better building, but for overall health,” she said.

Councilmember Mike Karbassi said getting police out of the old building was overdo.

“This is something that probably should have happened a long time ago, and it hasn’t,” he said. “I’ve heard of different problems, whether it’s the power systems or the HVAC systems. I mean, it’s really cold in the winter, it’s really hot in the summer, and these are folks that make very important decisions to impact the lives of our residents.”

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