Low-Key Efficiency

In the future, as LAPD detectives and patrol officers come and go from the new North Hollywood Police Station, they will pass by a four-line poem chiseled into a tan-colored brick and granite wall.

Each line begins with an engraved capitalized word: “Strength,” “Courage,” “Integrity” and “Honor.”

Written by Det. Michael Vaughn, the poem could stand as a memorial to the LAPD’s North Hollywood Division the past few weeks. Since the heroic efforts by officers of the division to bring down the bullet-spraying robbers at the Bank of America on Feb. 28, North Hollywood residents have sent flowers, letters and hundreds of cards in appreciation.

But in early May, the North Hollywood Division will receive its biggest award yet.

After eight years of planning and construction, two police chiefs and a land swap between the LAPD and the city’s Department of Recreation and Parks, the division will move to a new station that officials proudly point to as the most advanced of its type in Southern California.

Low-keyed but efficient and modern in design, the 2.75-acre, $15.2-million structure, situated near the 170 Freeway at 11640 Burbank Blvd., contains three stories and 37,340 square feet of space--more than 20,000 square feet larger than the division’s Jack Webb-era station on Tiara Street.

In contrast, the two stations not only reflect the rapid growth of Los Angeles and the Police Department over the past 40 years, but a change of philosophy in what kind of face the LAPD wants to present to the public it serves and protects.

“We wanted the new station to blend in with the buildings along Burbank [Boulevard],” said Linda Hogue, a civilian analyst for the LAPD’s facilities construction group and North Hollywood project manager.

“It took a lot of negotiations with residents and architects in order to come up with a final design that was not only practical and ecologically sound, but beautiful as well.”

Unlike preliminary designs for the new Newton and 77th Street police stations, local residents did not want the new North Hollywood station to resemble a fortress.

Although nobody will mistake it for the local grocery store, architects have softened the North Hollywood station’s blocky and somewhat static appearance with landscaping, using eucalyptus trees and red, green and tan exterior coloring to make the public entrance as open and inviting as possible.

In the main entrance’s courtyard, San Pedro artist Michael Davis has created a free-standing, walk-through arch, using two 10-foot-high plates of thick glass with a silkscreen image of the division’s original turn-of-the-century storefront entrance, detailed to show the old station’s Venetian blinds.

As the sun sets, the arch’s shadow will slowly slide toward the front door, casting its image inside the main lobby.

Inside, the station is divided into sections, a public section as well as others designed for detectives, patrol officers and support staff. According to Hogue, each section is designed for maximum efficiency and contains natural barriers to prevent officers from different sections from getting in the way of their neighboring colleagues.

The public section will include a circular, glass-enclosed community room for presentations and receptions. Instead of stark, windowless interview rooms that intimidate children, witnesses and crime victims, several interview rooms in the new station will contain wall-to-wall carpeting, sofas, floor lamps and TVs.

“Over the years, we’ve learned that juveniles and sexual-assault victims need these type of ‘soft’ interview rooms to feel more secure psychologically,” Hogue said.

Although a great deal of effort has gone into softening the look of the station for the public, a “Terminator”-type bandit would not find it easy to roll a car through the front door. An elaborate security and alarm system with 16 cameras, an emergency generator, 12-foot-high concrete walls and a state-of-the-art command and communication system will provide protection.

“This station falls under the same building codes as hospitals and other vital structures,” Hogue said. “In the case of a natural disaster, this may be the only building for several square miles that has electric power, running water and a secure communication link.”

North Hollywood’s old Tiara Street station, dedicated in 1957 by then-L.A. Mayor Norris Poulson and Police Chief William Parker, has long outlived its usefulness.

Officers and residents alike jostle each other down long, narrow hallways as well as in small, cramped offices. Rooms originally designed as jail cells are now the offices of the gang interdiction unit. Amid the peeling paint, fading formica floors and tumbled-down appearance, police staff members are forced to stack criminal records, office supplies and emergency equipment like cordwood in any available empty space and corner.

“All of us are doing our jobs to the best of our abilities, but when 10 people are trying to use a counter that’s designed for three or four, what can you do?” said Mary Parry, an LAPD civilian employee who has been an auto theft clerk at the Tiara Street station for five years.

The replacement station not only has more space but new amenities, including spacious locker and shower facilities for women and men, sleeping facilities for those on long shifts or with early court dates, a gym and a break room.

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“Design flexibility is the key phrase,” Hogue said. Since 1989, many elements of the LAPD have changed, including an increasing number of officers and the addition of community policing and bicycle patrols. All of those elements needed to be accounted for during the planning and contruction of the station, causing design revisions and delays.

Sometimes, design flaws were not uncovered until after construction. Perforated metal panels that vertically divide the main lobby’s front desk were found to block the officers’ view of the rest of the desk. Consequently, they will be shortened before the division moves in.

Bad weather during the past three winters have also slowed progress. After digging began on the station’s underground garage in November 1994, Hogue said rainy weather had threatened to turn the site into a “2-acre, 10-foot-deep swimming pool.”

Hogue hesitates when asked whether she believes the new North Hollywood station is the best in the city. She has, however, developed a strong emotional attachment to the building.

“I’ve worked on all three new stations and each has its own personality and charm, so I can’t tell you which one is the best,” Hogue says diplomatically.

“Although North Hollywood was the most difficult to plan and had the longest way to go, I’m especially proud that we were able to design a great facility for the division and bring it in at cost for the taxpayers.”