Students may have noticed some construction next to the Gymnasium in Lot 4 as a state-of-the-art police station and emergency operations center goes up.
Police Services will get a much-needed upgrade to its facilities at Contra Costa College this November when work on the new center is completed.
Buildings and Grounds Manager Bruce King said the new Police Services Center will be a one-floor, 3,430 square foot facility. The project has a budget of $2.25 million.
Director of Business Services Mariles Magalong said,” Our sister college, Los Medanos, (in Pittsburg) has already received a new police center. It’s the exact same (type of) building being constructed here.”
After the new police center is completed, the old office that consists of portable buildings near the Buildings and Grounds Office on the east side of campus will be torn down and the space used for additional parking spaces. Planning for the new Police Services Center began in March with McKinnon Construction beginning work on the project on May 22.
McKinnon Construction foreman Jason Pote said they are just one of the companies helping with the project, but his company will oversee the placement of a portable modular building atop the foundation.
“We are helping with the exterior plumbing and construction of the foundation. There are two other companies that will work on the electrical and interior plumbing,” he said.
The new center is a big upgrade from the existing office. The current Police Services office is on the edge of campus in the old childcare building and has about half the space of the new one at 1,500 square feet.
According to Magalong, what is unique about the construction of the center is that it is being built as a portable modular building in Bakersfield and will be driven over to its CCC destination for final assembly.
King said choosing this type of building saves the district money because it is much cheaper to have it constructed elsewhere and shipped here.
The new building will bring CCC’s Police Services Center into the 21st century with an array of upgrades.
“There are so many reasons to be excited about the new center,” Police Services Lieutenant Tom Holt said.
“It will have a host of new features that include an up-to-date modernized dispatch center, updated workstations, a designated interview/witness area, a better fingerprinting area and a better secured evidence storage repository.”