'Unknown unknowns': City staff, police chief address rising cost of new TPD headquarters
When asked by city commissioners why the cost of the new Tallahassee Police headquarters ballooned from $60 million to $135 million, the city's director of construction had a simple answer.
The increase "includes the construction, furniture, fixtures, equipment, (and) includes allowances for those items that we don't know the exact cost of yet, includes contingencies for things, for those unknowns we expect and also those unknown unknowns," John Powell said.
No one questions whether the city's police needs to move out of its current aging building on East Seventh Avenue, where they've been located for a half-century.
But it's still unclear, at least to some commissioners at Wednesday's meeting, why the price tag rose by tens of millions of dollars.
Police Chief Lawrence Revell explains cost and improvement TPD headquarters will bring
Commissioner Jack Porter asked about some of the specific needs for the new building.
Police Chief Lawrence Revell responded that the department wants to update its forensics department, which handles crime scene examination and in house evidence, complete with state-of-the-art equipment and a bigger space. Police also want more space for interview rooms.
Other new features: An in-house training facility, a fleet building to house the many different vehicles used by TPD, and a weight training room.
"Our records section will now be truly accessible to the public. When they come in, they will be able to go right to the counter," Revell said. There will also be "community rooms" and a possibly a city police museum.
Additional plans feature an evidence storage room to adequately store the 144,000 pieces of evidence TPD has kept throughout the years.
Other cities facing need for new police headquarters
City Manager Reese Goad recently told the Tallahassee Democrat that the rising cost of the HQ had to do with inflation, which has affected several projects in the city and across the nation.
"This project is astronomically expensive when we spend nearly $200 million as a community," Commissioner Jeremy Matlow said at the meeting.
Powell presented comparable projects for local buildings as well as other police headquarters in other cities in the state.
One example: Florida State's new College of Business building, which had a budget of $160 million. Others are the state Emergency Operations Center at $180 million and the new proposed Florida Department of Agriculture headquarters at $208 million.
A new police headquarters is a need in many cities in Florida: St. Petersburg worked with the same company the city is using, Ajax Building Co., for their new police headquarters, which cost $78.3 million.
Some of the features included in the St. Petersburg headquarters were solar panels and an emergency communications center built to withstand a Category 5 hurricane, among others.
Moreover, Fort Lauderdale broke ground on their new headquarters last June. As in Tallahassee, it too went through a similar budget increase, jumping from $75 million to $140 million.
As previously reported, the new TPD headquarters at Northwood is being billed as a "campus" that could include an an urban hotel along North Monroe, a performing arts center, a community gathering yard and housing, commercial and retail space.
Portions of TPD's current current headquarters are more than 100 years old. City officials say the building is beset by maintenance issues and no longer fits the needs of a growing, modern police force.
With design work set to be completed sometime in May, commissioners voted unanimously to approve the update and push the project forward.
Arianna Otero is the City Solutions Reporter for the Tallahassee Democrat. Contact her via email at aotero@tallahassee.com or on Twitter/X @ari_v_otero.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Tallahassee police chief, officials justify higher price tag for new HQ
