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Police officers move in to new home

By LEE WILLIAMS
lwilliams@TheCitizenNews.com

The Fayetteville Police Department and the Municipal Court have a new address and a sprawling $4 million new building to boot.

Police officials began moving their boxes and equipment out of the old brick building on Johnson Avenue and into their new home at 760 Jimmy Mayfield Boulevard near Bradley Drive on Feb. 10. By Tuesday, all of the personnel had been relocated.

Although officials are still working out a few bugs at the new location, Fayetteville Police Chief Johnny Roberts said he is pleased with the new structure, which is expected to meet the city’s needs for the next 30 years.

“We have a much larger evidence storage area. We have a large training room, a larger records storage area, and we have two temporary detention cells that we didn’t have in the other one,” Roberts said.

Officials scouted roughly 10 potential sites and the Mayfield Drive location was the best value for the taxpayers’ money, Roberts indicated. Residents will get to see the building during an open house that will be scheduled soon.

“We have a nice building that all of the employees are proud of and all of the citizens should be proud of,” he said.

The building will be paid for through the Georgia Municipal Association Certificates of Participation or COPs program. The money will be paid back over a 15-year period at a 4 percent interest rate, officials said.

Roberts indicated the building was well needed.

“We first started discussing this in 1998,” Roberts said. “We realized the city was out of space. We were all crammed together and we couldn’t function properly.”

The 24,000-square foot building has several rooms including one big room for the patrol division with numerous cubicles to give the officers individual workspace. Roberts said he chose this setup over individual offices to allow for future growth.

The new building will alleviate office congestion at several offices including the police department, building department, Municipal Court and fire department.

The Fayetteville Fire Department now will expand and move into a portion of the old police headquarters. The fire department will continue to occupy the other portion of the building. The building department also will move into the old police station.

The building also will provide ample parking for citizens on court day. A landlocked parking lot at City Hall made court day a challenge for some and a headache for others.