BURBANK : Police, Firefighters Eager for New Home

When the city of Burbank holds a groundbreaking ceremony for a new $25-million police and fire facility this month, that day will be met with much anticipation.

“We’ve lived this thing for so long and to see it come to fruition will be exciting,” said Lt. Joe Latta, the Burbank Police Department’s project manager for the new facility. Burbank officials have discussed a new police and fire station since at least 1988, and it is long overdue, Latta said.

The groundbreaking ceremony has been scheduled for April 18 at 4 p.m. to launch a 20- to 24-month construction of the 130,000-square-foot facility. The new building, at Palm and Orange Grove avenues, will be more than twice as large as the existing police and fire buildings combined.

“We’ve added almost a hundred employees to the building since we built it in 1960,” said Latta about the current police headquarters, which holds about 250 employees and a 46-bed jail. Police say the place gets too crowded on weekends.

Not only has the 35,000-square-foot building outgrown space needs, the outdated facility on Olive Avenue across from City Hall does not have sufficient electrical power to maintain modern police equipment such as radios, computers and faxes, Latta said.

The Burbank City Council approved the project in January, 1994.

“When I started in the department, people were using manual typewriters and carbon paper,” said Latta, who was a reserve officer in 1968. Today, they do not have the outlet capacity for all of the power rechargers used by patrol officers’ portable radios.

Considering that the building has been in constant use for 35 years--day and night--it has taken the wear and tear of a 100-year-old building, Latta said. Its outdated bomb shelter, which is in the basement and has three-foot-thick concrete walls, makes the building difficult to maintain, he said.

“Working in a negative work environment doesn’t do anything for morale,” he said.

The new building will have 80,000 square feet for police use, 43,000 square feet for Fire Department use and 7,000 square feet of common space.

The Fire Department’s 17,000-square-foot building, also on Olive Avenue, was built in 1957.

Burbank officials describe the new facility as a state-of-the-art building that will include a 70-bed jail, a crime lab, a communications and 911 center, a community meeting room, training facilities, four double-deep bays for fire equipment and a maintenance bay for vehicle repair.

There also will be new offices for fire prevention, hazardous materials, arson investigation and the disaster preparedness staff. The building will have a secured underground parking for 400 vehicles.