Manteca is long overdue for a police station that optimizes the effectiveness of the city’s law enforcement effort.
All five City Councill members agree to that.
Whether it should go forward first and not be addressed concurrently with other needs such as a city hall, Councilman Dave Breitenbucher may be one council member that disagrees with that sentiment.
But the other thing that the council agrees unanimously on is that part of the eight acres that Manteca purchased at 682 South Main Street for building a homeless navigation center and develop affordable housing doesn’t pencil out in terms of need and potential costs when it comes to building the city’s next police station.
They came to that conclusion Tuesday after staff submitted a requested pro and con assessment of the South Main Street site.
That said, the council opted to push forward with a site selection process along with a Manteca Police headquarters feasibility and design to be completed by the end of the year.
The goal is to have a “clear path forward” in place needed to make a new police station a reality after two previous directives during the past 21 years from past councils languished and died.
And to make sure a new police station is a council priority that ultimately gets implemented, elected officials formed an ad hoc committee of Mayor Gary Singh and Councilman Charlie Halford to work with staff.
Halford serving in the ad hoc committee is a bit ironic.
Halford was part of the police command when he was tasked with developing a laundry list of department needs in 2002 by the then council that had declared the existing station “woefully inadequate” even back then.
Of the two sites that the staff suggested for possible headquarters, one was a clear non-starter.
That non-starter wias the former Indy Electronics/Alphatec/Turnkey Solutions building at 400 Industrial Park Drive.
Not only would the city have to buy the property but there is a major demolition cost attached to prep the site to construct a police headquarters.
It is directly across from 555 Industrial Park Drive — the former Qualex operation whose parking lot housing the city’s makeshift homeless emergency services center.
That site was bought for the purpose to remodel as a new police station after the city purchased the 682 South Main Street site for police headquarters but opted not to build a new station from the ground up.
The other site was eight acres at 1862 Daniels Street the city owns. It is adjacent to the Sizzler’s restaurant and the four-story 101-room Staybridge Suites hotel now under construction.
On Thursday, Singh indicated there is other city-owned property he wants to assess as a possible police station site with Halford and municipal staff near the Big League Dreams sports complex.
The mayor pointed out the 1862 Daniels Street site is well-situated to snare additional restaurants and/or retail thanks to its freeway exposure.
At the same time the city owns roughly 100 acres they have earmarked for development as a family entertainment zone between BLD and Great Wolf.
Singh believes going to the northern part of the FEZ area where an extension of Wawona Street was envisioned to connect back to one of the three existing signalized intersections along Daniels Street past Costco to explore options could offer feasible sites.
It is part of the area where the city three years ago conceptually envisioned an $80 million community recreation complex with additional fields, an aquatics center and community center bordering BLD on the north
That could theoretically still happen even with locating police station in the area.
Singh believes there is more than adequate land to accommodate a police station and envisioned FEZ developments.
At the same time, it would serve as an effective buffer between the wastewater treatment plant and restaurants plus other commercial amusements that may eventually locate in the FEZ.
Deficiencies with the
current police facility
Interim Police Chief Stephen Schluer noted that with less than 30,000 square feet that also includes an evidence room for a staff of 114 that that “there are literally closets that have been converted into offices” at the existing police headquarters.
Besides staff being housed in closets, other building deficiencies include:
*Insufficient report writing space for patrol officers.
*Roof leaks.
*Infrastructure deficiencies such as plumbing and electrical.
*Heating and air conditioning issues.
*The walkways between buildings flood partially during heavy rain.
Besides having adequate space for existing operations and to accommodate growth, Schluer noted items such as a training center, fitness center, as well as a real time information center that allows for monitoring cameras placed throughout the city in parks, along streets, and in other high profile locations should be included in any new structure.
It was determined the 682 Main Street site could not effectively accommodate all three uses — homeless navigation center, affordable housing , and the police station — without building expensive parking structures.
And while construction standards place the average cost of a parking structure at $25,700 per space as of August 2021 in the United States, that doesn’t take into account California’s more intensive earthquake standards that — in the case of public safety — are even more costly.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com