HUNTINGTON BEACH : Officials Dedicate Police Substation

Surrounded by vintage cars, a variety of police vehicles and a police helicopter, about 100 residents gathered downtown Thursday as Police Chief Ronald E. Lowenberg formally dedicated the city’s second police substation.

Lowenberg, speaking to the crowd gathered on a portion of 5th Street that was closed off for the event, promised that “this is not just a police substation, but a downtown substation that is open for community use.”

Along with the police facility, the building houses an outreach office of the Huntington Youth Shelter and an office for the Bolsa Chica Wetlands Conservancy.

Lowenberg said he hopes the facility, which opened about three weeks ago, will be welcomed by downtown residents in the same manner that residents in the Oak View neighborhood accepted the city’s inaugural substation, which opened last year. Despite tense and often-violent beginnings, Oak View residents and police officers stationed there say they are developing a mutual understanding of one another.

Like the Oak View substation, the new downtown facility is manned chiefly by officers who will walk a beat in the area. The 5th Street substation is manned by three foot patrol officers and Sgt. Corby Bright, who is dividing his time between both substations.

The downtown facility has been welcomed by historic preservationists because it resulted in the restoration of the historic Shank House, owned by the city Redevelopment Agency. The two-story house, on 5th Street at Walnut Avenue, was built in 1913 for Dr. George Shank, who set up one of the first medical practices in Huntington Beach, served as the city’s first health officer and in 1926 was elected to the City Council.

The building, which in 1927 was moved to the present site from its original location on Pacific Coast Highway at 10th Street, has since served a variety of uses, including a boarding house. Rumors have persisted for years that the new police outlet at one time housed a brothel, city officials said.

Although the new facility is pattered after the Oak View substation, Lowenberg said it will be markedly different, “to serve the unique opportunities and issues that need to be addressed in the downtown area.”

Lowenberg began pushing for the downtown facility last year, largely as a result of local merchants’ complaints about vandalism, theft and other crimes in the nascent redevelopment area.

“This is not a cure-all for all the problems downtown, but to put a police substation here makes a lot of sense to begin addressing those things,” Lowenberg said.

In addition to permanent officers stationed at the facility, during the summer months the Police Department’s beach patrol--a sergeant, eight officers and six unsworn community liaisons--will use the substation as their headquarters.