South SF Breaks Ground on the New Police Operations & 911 Center

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, CA — The South San Francisco City Council celebrated the official groundbreaking of the new Police Operations & 911 Dispatch Center today by demolishing the existing building, located at 1 Chestnut Avenue, in front of more than 150 people.

"This is an historic time for the City of South San Francisco and our Police Department," said South San Francisco Mayor Rich Garbarino. "For more than 40 years, our Police Department has worked in a building that used to be an old department store, retrofitted to be a police station, which also is seismically unfit. Our Police Department has gotten a lot of use of their existing building, but it is time to provide our employees with a better facility aimed at best serving the needs of our community."

In 18 months from now, the more than 100 employees of the South San Francisco Police Department will have a new state-of-the-art Police Operations & 911 Dispatch Center to call home. The nearly 44,000 square foot facility will house the 911 Emergency Center, administrative services, records, communications, investigations, property and evidence, patrol, physical training, a classroom and firing range. "Our new Police Operations and 911 Dispatch Center will set the Police Department up for success for decades to come, which in turn means a safer South San Francisco," said South San Francisco Police Chief Jeff Azzopardi. "Today's celebration was not only for our employees, but also for our residents, who are the ones that turned our dreams into reality."

The development of the new Police Operations & 911 Dispatch Center wouldn't be possible if it wasn't for the residents of South San Francisco passing Measure W, a half-cent sales tax, back in 2015. The District tax went into effect April 1, 2016. The passage of Measure W ensures that the City of South San Francisco is able to maintain and enhance locally controlled City services that the community cares about and has come to expect - including neighborhood police patrols, 911 response times, crime and gang suppression programs, street maintenance and pothole repair, and other essential services.

The location of the new police headquarters is at 1 Chestnut Avenue in South San Francisco, the site of the former Pet Club store. The site was acquired by the City in 2017 as the site for the new police facility, although the site had been purchased by the former South San Francisco Redevelopment Agency in 2008 for redevelopment.

City staff awarded the contract to Swinerton Builders. The total construction budget for the Police Operations & 911 Dispatch Center is $52,553,015.00, which is on budget with the city engineer's estimate for cost of construction. More information on the Community Civic Campus is at www.CommunityCivicCampus.net.

This press release was produced by the City of South San Francisco. The views expressed here are the author’s own.