Sheriff Would Like to Move Headquarters to Kearny Mesa

The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department is considering moving its headquarters from downtown San Diego to Kearny Mesa.

Sheriff Jim Roache will ask the county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday for permission to begin negotiations to buy a three-story building in Kearny Mesa so the department can move its headquarters from a crowded downtown facility into a site that would also allow it to centralize many of its administrative operations.

The existing headquarters on C Street is in the same building as the downtown County Jail. It is so crowded that the department must rent offices throughout the county, said Assistant Sheriff Melvin Nichols.

The move to the Viewpoint Plaza building on Ridgehaven Court would save taxpayers money because “right now we’re paying through the nose for rental space” in other facilities throughout the county, Nichols said.

The plan calls for using about $1.5 million from the department’s drug asset forfeiture fund to help buy the building, Nichols said. “That way, the drug crooks will be paying to help us catch more crooks,” he added.

If everything goes smoothly, people could be moved into the new headquarters early next year, Nichols said. About 200 employees would be relocated over three years, he said.

The building, which is owned by a private corporation, is close to the freeway, has more parking and is more accessible for employees from the sheriff’s stations, Nichols said. It is also about a mile from the county’s disaster command center, he said.

If the Sheriff’s Department moved out of the jail, more space would be available for much-needed jail beds, storage and office space, Nichols said.

The department had been looking at different sites for about four years, and the search intensified when Roache came into office in January, Nichols said.

The Sheriff’s Department was told of the location in late June while the county was seeking interim space for the solid waste division of the Public Works Department, said Chuck Pennell, a county project manager.

The building has been offered to the county on a lease basis with an option to buy. “We don’t know how much it will save the taxpayers until we start negotiations,” Pennell said.

Nichols added, “It’s a bag full of hot air, until the board gives us permission. It’s a little more than a proposal, though, because we have a location.”