Estimated $33.5 million project to improve collaboration, capabilities

The training room inside Grapevine's fire administration building doubles as a volunteer work area and storage site for EMS supplies. To interview inmates, police detectives have to move them from the detention facility through public hallways to reach interview rooms on the opposite end of Grapevine's police and courts building.

Those are among the functional deficiencies detailed in a public safety needs assessment presented to the City Council late last year. Now city leaders are looking to construct a roughly 94,400-square-foot public safety building at a cost of approximately $33.5 million.

"We feel pretty passionate that public safety has waited its turn, and now is the time to make sure that they have the building and technology they need for the future," Grapevine City Manager Bruno Rumbelow said.

Public safety 2.0

Though the council is considering four potential sites for the new facility, they know the site will house the city's police department, municipal court, fire administration, detention facility and emergency operations center. It will also provide spaces for specialized equipment and vehicles, and a warehouse to store supplies, property and evidence.

Grapevine voters last May overwhelmingly approved renewing a half-cent sales tax designation for the the city's Crime Control & Prevention District. The tax will last for an additional 15 years and help pay for public safety initiatives. After voters approved the tax, the council requested a public safety needs assessment. It remains unclear which fund the council will tap for the new facility's eventual cost. Brinkley Sargent Architects presented findings from their study during a council workshop on Nov. 15.

Cramped conditions

For the existing building that houses the city's police department, municipal court and detention facility at 307 West Dallas Rd., the study identified numerous functional deficiencies. For example, the building was not up to standards for handicap accessibility, had limited storage space and an inadequate forensic work area. It also lacked a witness waiting room and public attorney meeting spaces.

Grapevine Chief of Police Eddie Salame said overcrowding and safety are problems at the existing building.

"If a detective wants to interview a prisoner, you've got to take him out and walk him across a public hallway into the interview rooms on the other side of the building," he said. "That's really not the way that things should be done."

The existing police and courts building was built for Braniff International Airways. The city bought the building, after the company went bankrupt, Salame said. The city turned the building into a police facility and municipal library in 1978. While the library has since moved out to give the department more room and the building has undergone changes to accommodate department needs, it is not enough.

"It's just an old building," Salame said. "It's not a building that really is made to sustain today's police functions."

At the existing fire administration building at 601 Boyd Dr., the study noted limited storage space, the lack of an operations room, conference rooms and a radio amateur civil emergency service room.

Supplies and training materials are stuffed into boxes, which are hidden under desks, inside closets and even underneath the sink of the women's restroom.

"It's cramped," Grapevine Fire Chief Steve Bass said. "We have no storage. We have no room to grow."

Built in 1991, the fire administration building houses administration offices for the fire chief and deputy fire chiefs. It was originally built to accommodate five fire administration employees, but the staff has since grown to include 10 people, Bass said.

The training room can fit about 20 to 25 people inside, but there have been times when the department has had training sessions for 100 people, Bass said. As a result, the fire department might borrow the training room at the police building or community rooms operated by the city Parks and Recreation Department. They might also rent rooms at the Grapevine Convention Center or the Lancaster Theatre, which costs between $125 and $300 per day.

Finding a site

Initial concept plans for the new facility included demolishing the existing police and courts building and constructing a four-story building on the site. However, the council last year expressed concern about the idea of expanding a new building on the site because of its proximity to residences. Instead, the council asked to see potential alternatives. A recommendation on a site could come to the council as early as next month, Rumbelow said.

The price tag of roughly $33.5 million came as a surprise to Grapevine Mayor William D. Tate, but he said all the city's leaders understand that the departments have grown in terms of manpower, equipment and technology over the years.

"We built a lot of other municipal buildings for other departments," Tate said. "And they are the biggest department and they've been last, so there's no question that we need to improve the facilities. How we do it and how much is proper to spend is still debatable."

Bass said improvements would be noticeable immediately and would provide for years to come.

"This [new] facility provides for the future, but provides, most importantly, to bring us up to a modern, efficient facility that helps us do our job and helps the public access us better than they do now, whether it's fire, police or courts," Bass said. "We serve the citizens and this gives us a better ability to do that."