HUNTINGTON BEACH : City Landmark to Be Police Substation

The City Council unanimously agreed this week to convert a downtown historic landmark into the city’s second police substation.

The substation, tentatively scheduled to open June 12, will be on the bottom floor of the two-story Shank House at 5th Street and Walnut Avenue.

The new police facility, patterned after a substation opened last September in the Oak View neighborhood, will be manned year-round by two foot patrol officers. Between June and September each year, the Police Department’s beach patrol--composed of a sergeant, six officers and eight non-sworn community liaison personnel--will also operate out of the new facility.

Police Chief Ronald E. Lowenberg said that as redevelopment efforts are transforming the downtown area into a new commercial and recreation hub, merchants have called for increased police presence in the area. For the past few months, one officer has begun patrolling the area on a part-time basis to discourage vandalism, burglaries and other crimes, Lowenberg said.

The Shank House, built for a physician in 1906, has been vacant since the Redevelopment Agency bought the structure three years ago for $453,000. The agency since has worked to restore the old home but has been unable to attract a tenant.

The substation will operate from the building for at least three years. After that, if the real estate market is stronger, the agency would consider selling the building and moving the substation, said Barbara Kaiser, deputy city administrator for economic development.

Because the agency owns the house, the city will not have to pay rent to use the building. But the agency, which to date has spent $200,000 to rehabilitate the landmark, will pay at least $38,000 more to finish the renovation and prepare the building for the police to move in.

The new facility will cost the city $152,000 a year in additional salaries and benefits for the two officers. To cover that expense, the city will either impose a utility tax on cable television users or dip into its reserves.

Agency officials say the upper story of the home could accommodate the city’s Conference and Visitors Bureau office and an outreach center of the Huntington Beach Youth Shelter.

Council members said they favored the Shank House over another proposed site in a ground-level office of the Main Promenade parking structure on Main Street mainly because it is cheaper and will put the vacant home to use. The parking structure office would cost the city more than $20,000 each year in rent, agency officials said.

Some members, however, had reservations. Councilman Earle Robitaille, a former Huntington Beach police chief, said he opposes the idea of substations altogether because he believes such offices decentralize police administration and become increasingly difficult to govern.

In response, Lowenberg said: “I agree you can get to a point where you have a number of police departments within a police department. But I think we’ll be able to overcome that.”