EDMOND — City officials and architects have gone to Texas and California to look at other public safety centers to help determine the design of Edmond's new $25.5 million center.
Philip McNayr, with Frankfurt Short Bruza architects, said they might try some of the ideas as they design Edmond's new home for police headquarters, 911 communications and emergency management operations.
“You have to pick and choose what we can afford,” McNayr said. “There were lessons learned.”
For example, the Edmond contingent was told not to use wood on the chairs for officers because their guns cause scratches. They were told to use tile carpet so it can be replaced when coffee is spilled, and to make sure the interview rooms have the proper acoustics so everything said can be recorded.
Motion detectors for lighting worked in some places but didn't at another, the architects said.
Voters on Oct. 11 approved a half-cent sales tax for five years to pay for the center to be built at First Street and Littler Avenue. A second building, to be constructed just west of 33rd Street and Broadway, will house evidence storage and the crime laboratory. Construction is expected to take 18 to 20 months.
Architects are working on the pre-design plans, which are expected to be refined, McNayr said.
The L-shaped building downtown will be four levels, with the jail and one of the two levels of parking underground.
