In a nutshell
Officials from Dallas County and Kaizen Development Partners hosted a ceremonial groundbreaking for the new facility, located at 1010 Mockingbird Lane in Dallas. Construction on the new facility is expected to finish in 2026, officials said.
The new facility is located on 4.8 acres and will total 37,000 square feet when finished.
The details
The new emergency operations center will provide needed space and technologies that are not present in the existing space, according to a county news release. It will serve as a central hub for coordinating emergency response efforts during natural disasters and public health emergencies.
The county’s emergency management team is located at a converted warehouse west of downtown Dallas where they moved to in 2015, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said. The space is much better than where its emergency management team was working before, but the new facility will be even better, he said.
“We plan to be in this location for a very long time,” Jenkins said.
What officials are saying
Dallas County regularly tops the list of at-risk locations for natural disasters partly because of its location and population density, Jenkins said.
“And that's not a list we necessarily want to be on,” he said. “But it's one that we all take very very seriously.”
The new facility will advance the capabilities of the county’s 40-person emergency management team, he said. It will also support a response operation of up to 150 trained individuals within the building.
Dallas County Commissioner Elba Garcia said the county was ready to commit to a state-of-the art emergency operations facility. The new facility will also serve as a hub for other emergency departments across Dallas County’s municipalities.
“It was appropriate and right to have an emergency operations center that will reflect the strong leadership that Dallas County has,” she said.
About the developers
Kaizen Development is a real estate development company based in Dallas. The company has worked on several mixed-use, residential and office developments across Dallas-Fort Worth, including District 121 in McKinney.
Kaizen CEO Derrick Evers said they were elated to play a small role in giving the emergency management team the tools they need to respond to disasters.
“They say evil prevails when individuals fail to answer the call,” he said. “But one thing I can attest to is the men and women that are associated with this project run to danger. They run to answer those calls on our behalf when we’re in our weakest moments.”
