The City of Sarasota, Florida had known for decades that the largest component of its organizational structure was working out of the worst city-owned facility in the community. The existing police department headquarters was originally constructed in the 1950’s and received a significant addition and renovation in 1972. The headquarters had not been upgraded since the addition and as time passed and the Florida Building Codes were updated, the facility was no longer in compliance with the current codes including a lack of Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) conformity.
There were continuous ongoing maintenance issues. The building envelope made up of the roof and exterior walls and glazing systems were all leaking allowing significant moisture intrusion throughout the structure. The dreaded reality of mildew remediation efforts had to be initiated as many areas within the structure showed visible signs of the harmful growth. Simply stated, this structure had long since outlived its useful life cycle and could no longer support the mission of the police department in providing the many services it provides to the community that relate to the quality of life in Sarasota.
In recognition of the need to address the facility issues, in 2002 the police department sent two of its command staff to attend the Public Safety Facilities Planning Seminar co-hosted by The Center for Public Safety (CPS) and Architects Design Group (ADG). In attendance were Administrative Lieutenant Gerry Lacertosa and Captain Mikel Holloway, both of which became highly instrumental in the success of the city’s goal of providing the police department with a new, state-of-the-art facility. Lacertosa eventually became the police department’s project manager to get its project moving forward, and Holloway became the Chief of Police.
This Public Safety Facilities Planning Seminar was designed to assist public safety entities, such as the Sarasota Police Department, in their quest to update their primary facilities from which they serve their communities. Armed with the knowledge gained from the seminar, the police department approached the city administration and council to request funding to have a detailed spatial need assessment (SNA) completed.
The SNA is the first step in the planning process and would qualify the size and cost of the project. Once completed, the budget for the design and construction of a new headquarters facility could become more than just a promise to the men and women of the police department. Through a competitive selection process, ADG was selected to work with the police department in developing this first, and most important, step in the process.
For the detailed SNA, all four of the facilities which the police department was operating from were evaluated, as were the properties, which equated to a cumulative total of 56,511 SF. At the request of the city, the detailed SNA was completed in a forty-five-day turnaround in June of 2003.
To meet the current national law enforcement standards, the SNA concluded that the police department should be currently working out of a total of 93,018 SF. This indicated that the existing facilities equated to approximately 60 percent of what a modern facility would afford the department. The SNA also considered future staffing projections that correlated to planned community growth and increased services being provided by the police department. The twenty-year build-out identified a need for up to 115,343 SF, and this was the number the city approved for budgeting purposes.
ADG, in association with the police department’s project manager Lt. Gerry Lacertosa, presented the findings to the city council. This started the dialogue regarding how to fund the project. The city ultimately elected to utilize a voter referendum to solicit the input of the community and proceeded with a campaign for a not-to-exceed $50 million referendum. ADG developed presentation materials for the city staff to use in their informational presentations about the need for the project to proceed. The voter referendum passed with a significant majority vote and the project was fully funded.
The city retained ADG to assist with identifying potential site candidates for the new headquarters. This process entailed detailed evaluations of approximately eight properties and concluded with the eventual location as the primary candidate for consideration. The property required land acquisition and this added to the overall development costs, but more importantly, it maintained the police department headquarters in the downtown Sarasota core which was as much a result of the politics as it was any other reason.
Once the location of the new proposed facility was approved by the city council, the city advertised for the design team. By this time, the city had retained the services of a well-known owner’s representative firm, Project Development International (PDI).
The Sarasota Police Department’s new headquarters building was designed to meet environmental sustainability goals of the US Green Building Council’s LEED New Construction (NC 2.2) criteria. At the time the USGBC certified the new police department headquarters, it was the first LEED certified police facility in the State of Florida, the 19th LEED® certified project in Sarasota County, and the 33rd LEED-certified Police Headquarters in the United States.
The LEED® NC program evaluates the sustainability performance of new buildings according to following categories:
Each of these criteria were evaluated during the design process and approached using the following design strategies:
Ian Reeves, President of Architects Design Group, worked directly with the city to identify an opportunity for the city and the police department to receive a prime artifact from the 9-11 terrorist attack. ADG coordinated all design disciplines as they provided all design and engineering to erect a memorial salvaged from World Trade Center Tower Two, a 14.5-foot-long, 2,500-pound steel beam. The team worked for more than a year and a half on the design, engineering, preparation, and placement of the memorial dedicated to the first responders who died trying to save others in the terrorist attack.
