New public safety shell complete; interior work to begin
By Daily Press staff
Cheers and applause rang out Friday as construction workers lowered a steel girder into place, completing the skeleton of Santa Monica’s new public safety building.
City officials hosted a “topping-off” ceremony on the building’s roof to celebrate the completion of the structure’s framework, which has taken 21 months. Construction will now swing into full gear on the interior of the building. The project is expected to be completed by the middle of next year.
When complete, the building — which is between the back of City Hall and Fourth Street — will reach 75 feet tall and house the police department, the fire department and the city’s new emergency operations center.
Up to this point, there have been 64 contractors with more than 250 employees working on the building. Officials noted that no one has been injured on the job.
“We can only hope that you will continue to have as safe a record as we have had this far and that no injuries befall you in this building,” said Sam Rosaro, the project’s construction manager.
“We can only hope that you will continue to have as safe a record as we have had this far...” — — SAM ROSARO Project’s construction manager
The building currently has 30,000 cubic yards of concrete and four million pounds of reinforcing steel.
“I don’t think this building will budge an inch when we have our next earthquake,” said Assistant City Manager Gordon Anderson, which drew a nervous laugh from the audience.
Councilman Richard Bloom said the public safety building will be the first part of the civic center redevelopment plan to become a reality.
“It’s the first major piece of our new civic center we are building,” he said. “So it’s really a cornerstone of what we are envisioning for our new civic center.
“But it is also the cornerstone of our city because of the importance we place on our police and fire services,” he said.
Fire and police officials said they are eager to move into the new building, adding that having a centralized emergency services will help the departments in their “customer relations.”
But Police Chief James T. Butts, Jr. said the new building also will say a lot about the importance Santa Monica places on its police and fire fighters.
“As a police department we have always thought of ourselves as a world-class police department,” he said, “and now we will truly look like one.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 20, 2002. Read the original PDF.