52% in Salt Lake poll back public-safety bond

A new public-safety complex would be built near downtown, Winkler said. A site has not been announced, but negotiations for the property are under way, he said.

The 126,000-square-foot public-safety building would house police and fire administrations, the fire marshal and code-enforcement staff, police detectives and the city's homeland security unit.

A 150,000-square-foot parking structure also is planned, with a 50,000-square-foot area to be dedicated to climate-controlled evidence storage for police.

The third structure at the public-safety complex would be a 25,000-square-foot emergency operations center, something the city really doesn't have at its current location, Winkler said.

"Our EOC is just a board room on the first floor of the public-safety building," he said.

The new center would be dedicated to all types of emergencies — from those on a large scale, such as an earthquake, to mostly benign things, such as a major snowstorm that causes problems in the city for a few days, Winkler said. The 911 dispatch center for fire and police also would be housed in the emergency operations center.

A 45,000-square-foot Glendale fire station and training center would be built at the existing location of station No. 14 at 1560 S. Industrial Road. Winkler said the current station, built in 1974, is "outdated, technologically inadequate" and too small to house a ladder truck.

The combined police/fire station in Sugar House is proposed for the southeast corner of Fairmont Park, covering between two and three acres. That 42,000-square-foot facility would replace fire station No. 3 at 1085 E. Simpson Ave.

"We're trying to optimize the dollar value the citizens are getting for their tax dollar by combining police and fire facilities into public-safety facilities," Winkler said. "Rather than looking for two pieces of property and building two buildings in Sugar House, we'll have one structure that meets everybody's needs."

The Utah Taxpayers Association, a nonprofit group that represents taxpayers and promotes fair and equitable taxation, has not yet taken a position on the proposed bond, said Royce Van Tassell, the association's vice president.

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