Mesa unveils $62.7 million plan to renovate police headquarters; holding facility and in-custody court added to scope

City of Mesa police leaders and city staff on Feb. 13 presented a multi-phase renovation of the downtown police headquarters, adding a modern holding facility and in-custody court to a previously planned headquarters renovation and estimating a total project budget of $62.7 million.

Chiefs and staff said the headquarters—original construction phases date to 1974, 1988 and 1997—requires replacement of mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems and a redesign that improves public access, officer wellness and operational efficiency. The plan calls for removing interior walls and systems, relocating stairwells to exterior positions, refurbishing elevators, improving natural light, adding a community room adjacent to the lobby and moving the Fallen Officer Memorial to a visible, centralized site.

“Members of this team have helped guide this process for the last four years,” Executive Assistant Chief Dan Butler said, emphasizing community connectivity and employee wellness. Assistant Chief Jeff Cutler described the holding facility and in-custody court in the basement as a temporary processing center where Mesa processes “over 17,600 people per year on average.” Cutler said the current basement layout creates bottlenecks, blind spots and cramped control areas; the redesign adds separate ingress and egress, larger group-processing areas, modern cell doors, isolation cells and a centralized control room.

Funding and scope: Staff said voters approved $44 million for the headquarters project in a 2022 public-safety bond question, and the police department proposed adding approximately $10 million from a public-safety sales tax set aside to cover additional scope for the holding facility. The design estimate increased during preconstruction to a total project estimate of about $62.7 million (including a 5% contingency): roughly $52.9 million for the headquarters renovation and approximately $9.8 million for the holding facility and in-custody court. The police department also identified $5.7 million in 2024 public-safety bonds as a funding source to help cover the added scope; staff described this as a reprogramming of funds within the public-safety bond category to prioritize the holding facility.

Council discussion focused on operational benefits, public transparency and the bonds’ scope. Vice Mayor Summers and others said reprogramming bond proceeds within a broad public-safety category is legally permissible but urged clear public communication so voters understand shifts among projects that were presented as examples in the bond question. “I think we need to be consistent and very transparent,” Vice Mayor Summers said. Councilmember Adams supported the project and noted that, amortized over a projected 50-year life, the cost equates to roughly a million dollars a year.

Next steps: Staff told council the project will return to the Feb. 24 council agenda as a guaranteed maximum price (GMP) request (the GMP was described as roughly $52 million plus contingency). No formal council action on the GMP or on final fund reprogramming occurred at the study session; staff said they will present the GMP and the detailed funding plan to council for approval.

Why it matters: The headquarters serves more than 300 employees and includes day-to-day public-facing functions; staff said the redesign aims to improve safety, detainee processing, employee wellness, and community access while accommodating anticipated growth and technologies such as fiber and real-time crime center integration.

Details to watch: the Feb. 24 GMP request, the council’s final decision on reprogramming identified bond and sales-tax funds, and follow-up design or sequencing changes for the public-safety training facility that staff said could be affected by the reallocation.