Police Station Expansion Planned
About $7.7 million in improvements will be made next year to the Los Angeles Police Department’s Southwest station, which has not been renovated since it opened in 1962.
A groundbreaking ceremony this month marked the beginning of the project, which will take place in three phases next year.
The additions will include a four-story parking garage, a separate locker room for female officers and enlargement of the 26,000-square-foot station to about 34,800 square feet. Construction is expected to begin in late January.
“Most of us are pretty excited about it,” Sgt. David Young said. “Our facility is one of the smaller ones. We definitely feel we’ve outgrown it.”
The Southwest station, at 1546 W. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., has 225 officers and serves a 10-square-mile area including Crenshaw, Leimert Park, Baldwin Hills and part of South-Central.
Police Chief Willie L. Williams, Police Commissioner Stanley Sheinbaum and Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas were among those on hand to observe the ceremony at the station.
Money for the improvements is coming from $176 million allocated to the Police Department by a citywide proposition passed by voters in 1989.
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