El Paso looks to build new Central police station at former Bonham Elementary School

The city of El Paso plans to purchase the shuttered Bonham Elementary School as the future site of the El Paso Police Department's new Central Regional Command Center.

The City Council in a 8-0 vote approved the purchase of Bonham Elementary at the council meeting on Tuesday, April 9, at City Hall.

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The city will buy the 13 acres of the Bonham school/park site intended to be the location of a new Central police station, according to city documents. The shuttered school would be purchased from the El Paso Independent School District for $4.76 million. The EPISD board of trustees approved selling the site last month.

Bonham is at 7024 Cielo Vista Drive near Airway Boulevard and Edgemere Drive in the Cielo Vista neighborhood close to Burges High School.

Bonham Elementary School closed in 2021 along with other schools because of declining enrollment. In 2017-18, there were 257 students enrolled at Bonham, which was at 76% capacity. Bonham consolidated with MacArthur pre-K-8 school.

Bonham had opened in 1954 and was named after James Butler Bonham, who died defending the Alamo during the Texas Revolution in 1836.

EPPD Central Regional Command Center has parking, space issues in Downtown El Paso

The purchase of the former campus for a new police station would use funding from the 2019 Public Safety Bond approved by voters. The $413 million bond included $24.6 million set for the new Central Regional Command Center.

The Central Regional Command Center is currently across the street from the Downtown jail in a precinct-style building dating back to 1894. It was renovated in 1994. The current Central station has severe parking and space limitations with some of its units having to be located in other buildings Downtown.

Once the new station is built, the current Central station would house the Downtown-based police Metro Unit, which is now in an office at the Union Plaza Transit Terminal Parking Garage, city staff said during public presentations on the bond issue in 2019.

The Police Department has been searching for a more centrally located Central regional command center. The current Central police region covers the oldest parts of the city, including Downtown, Sunset Heights, Manhattan Heights and east to Ascarate Park.

The boundaries of El Paso's current five police regions will change once the new regional command centers open.

New police station part of El Paso Police Department development plans

The city's plans also call for the sale of the current police headquarters at 911 N. Raynor St. in Five Points. The current EPPD headquarters is in a building that was originally a Sears department store built in 1947. It became police headquarters in 1988.

The city has had discussions of possibly building the recently renamed Chief Gregory K. Allen Police Headquarters on city land that used to house Cohen Stadium along the Patriot Freeway in the Northeast.

The Public Safety Bond issue approved in 2019 includes funding for the new "Upper Eastside" police regional command center under construction on Pebble Hills Boulevard in the city's expanding eastern edge near Pebble Hills High School.

The bond also supports renovations at the Northeast, Mission Valley, Westside and Pebble Hills regional command centers, new fire stations, a new headquarters for the El Paso Fire Department and a new police-fire training academy site.

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: New Central El Paso police station planned for Bonham school site