Music Controls     Old Bank Is Now New H.Q. For Police City officials unveil new Police Headquarters Wednesday, June 7, 2006 By Patrick Justin Fahey, Staff Writer East Orange Police will get much needed space EAST ORANGE, NJ - On a warm day, the East Orange police provided a cool respite for those gathered for the dedication of the department’s new headquarters. “For those of us gathered here, those many dedicated individuals, whose magnificent work helped make today possible,” began Police Director Jose Cordero, “for those of us who will work here and those we will serve, today is a very proud day. Over the last 4 1/2 years we witnessed a truly remarkable transformation of this building from a county government office building to a 50,000-square-foot state-of-the-art police building. “It is a fitting home to one of the finest police departments in the country,” Cordero continued. “It will stand as a symbol of safety, justice and security. This new headquarters will help us do things that will benefit ourselves and the community.” The new headquarters along South Munn Avenue will replace the 22,000-square-foot existing building along North Munn Avenue by City Hall. It was built in 1929 to house a department half the size of the current one. The new police headquarters is the city’s third since 1885. The original was a simple wood structure. The new building has 31 holding cells, a new dispatch center, an exercise facility, modernized records bureau, new 911 emergency-response systems and increased parking-lot space for police vehicles. The new headquarters cost $19 million, which city officials said came in slightly under budget. “It’s a state-of-the-art building, period,” said Director of Public Works Calvin Gibson. Director of Policy, Planning and Development James Slaughter said he saw the headquarters as a “jumping off” point for the neighborhood. “It makes this neighborhood a safer place which will act as an anchor for redevelopment efforts,” said Slaughter. Mayor Robert Bowser talked about some of the obstacles city officials and construction crews had to overcome. He specifically referred to a brick façade that had been poorly installed. “We called in a minority contractor who did the job right. Don’t tell us that our people can’t get things done,” said Bowser. Council Chairman William Holt thanked many of the people who made the new building possible. He cited Councilman Thomas Brown, chairman of the council’s public-safety committee, which handles police issues. He finished his comments with a joke. “Enjoy the day and we don’t want to see you back here,” said Holt.   Old Bank To Become New H.Q. For Police  Tuesday, June 10, 2003 By Kevin C. Dilworth, Star-Ledger Staff It's so cramped inside the East Orange Police Headquarters that morning and evening roll calls are held in a first-floor assembly room that doubles as a temporary holding pen for inmates awaiting processing and jailing. An adjacent garage houses lockers for police officers, who rarely use them because of water leakage and other deteriorating conditions, said Chief Charles Grimes, a 38-year veteran of the city police force. The firearms range in the basement has been off-limits for years because of lead contamination. And with a city that averages about 30 arrests per weekend, there are only 12 jail cells in the police station. There's no debate that the department has long since outgrown its North Munn Avenue headquarters, built in 1928. After nine years of fits and starts, the city is finally moving to complete an $18.6 million renovation of a nearby former bank building that will become the new Police Headquarters. The first phase involves gutting the building, which should be completed by the end of the month. The second phase includes renovating the building, adding a second elevator and a two-level, 200-lot parking garage, with the lower level reserved for police. That phase will be completed this fall. The last phase, to complete the interior and install communication systems, security equipment and furniture, is scheduled to be completed by October 2004, according to Thomas Banker, a longtime political official who has been hired by East Orange as the project's construction manager. "This building is the solution to a decades-old set of problems," Banker said. "It provides an efficient and safe environment for police officers, convenient access to police services for East Orange citizens, and it resolves long-standing issues regarding the safe management of police prisoners while in municipal custody." When the current Police Headquarters opened more than seven decades ago, the department had 74 employees, housed the municipal court and judges' chambers, jail cells and had parking spaces for less than a dozen patrol vehicles. Today, there are 320 employees who process about 7,000 prisoners a year. Parking is almost impossible. There are no jail visitation accommodations. And the building is jammed with a cafeteria, an infirmary, a library and a Police Athletic League program where hundreds of youngsters all compete for space. Ever since he joined the East Orange Police force more than two decades ago, Lt. Norwood Hickson said, people have been talking about building a new facility to replace the city's grossly overcrowded headquarters. Today, however, a replacement public safety complex -- a state-of- the-art facility planned for the former bank building -- is a dream coming true. A combination of demolition, renovation and expansion work is under way at the 1963-built Fidelity Union Bank building that at one time housed Essex County social services, Essex County Sheriff's and Essex County Prosecutor's offices, and it should be ready for city police occupancy beginning in October 2004. The progress comes after many years of planning. In 1994, when the state Department of Corrections cited East Orange for operating a cramped public safety facility filled with code violations and inadequate jail facilities, then-Mayor Cardell Cooper announced he had hired an architectural firm to design a new public safety complex on a then-vacant parcel at New Main Street and Greenwood Avenue. The proposal never saw the light of day, mainly because Cooper never consulted the city council about any of the construction or financing details. Elected officials in the cash-strapped city subsequently nixed the $14 million plan. Today, things are different. The city council has authorized the venture, and construction workers have already been hired and have begun working. "Everybody is hoping that everything works out and it goes through," Hickson said of the new police headquarters, a five-story, steel-framed, 50,000-square-foot building that will feature 25 jail cells and multipurpose meeting space to accommodate 200 people. "It's long overdue." Grimes said overcrowded conditions in the current, two-story Police Headquarters are pretty bad. "We had half the personnel that we now have," the police chief recalled. In the interim years, the number of officers in the department has almost doubled, creating crammed conditions in offices occupied by police who work in vice, the auto squad, the detective bureau and the police community services/Police Athletic League unit. "We've outgrown the building," Grimes said. "There aren't even decent lockers for the people who work here." In fact, the lockers are in a former garage adjacent to the building. The new facility is being transformed into a replacement headquarters in three phases, Banker said. Because South Munn Avenue's topography makes it a single story higher than parallel South Arlington Avenue, the building's two- level parking garage will feature surface level parking on the South Munn Avenue, public side of the facility, and parking for police -- in an enclosed, single-level building -- on the South Arlington Avenue side. Banker said the new building also will feature segregated prisoner and citizen activities, an electronically monitored and controlled cell block, separate shower, bathroom and locker facilities for men and women, a physical training room, flexible room walls, cubicles and meeting spaces, private interview rooms, and computer link- ups to the East Orange Municipal Court, diagonally across the street, at South Munn Avenue and Freeway Drive East. "Architecturally," Banker said of the planned facility, "it's going to be attractive and aesthetically pleasing, and at the same time, extremely functional."