Architect presents phased plan for Pembroke Pines public safety complex with crime lab, hardened utilities and 288-space garage

An architect hired by the City of Pembroke Pines told the commission on May 26 that a phased public safety complex could deliver a modern, hurricane-hardened headquarters for police and fire while increasing on-site evidence storage, community-facing space and training areas.

Rodney McManus, senior vice president at Architects Design Group, described the staff-supported alternative labeled Option C-2.2: a roughly 108,853-square-foot police headquarters (with shell space to grow toward about 122,000 square feet over 30 years), a two-story fire station, and a five-level parking structure to accommodate roughly 288 secured spaces. He described phased delivery so the police HQ and parking garage would be Phase I and the new Fire Station 69 would be Phase II, with temporary accommodations to maintain emergency response during construction.

"We're utilizing the same site... The buildings that we're proposing are a 2 story fire station along with a 5 story police department and also a 5 level parking garage," McManus said, presenting an initial opinion of probable cost and the operational layout for vehicle access, evidence processing and a real-time crime/intelligence center.

The architect provided detailed per-line cost workups: a figure of $555 per square foot for core police construction, a parking allowance of about $34,000 per structured space, demolition allowances for existing facilities and separate allowances to harden utility plants (generators, fuel pumps, protective cages) for hurricane-level protection. He also described storage allowances for rolling assets and the design decision to place central utility plants on the ground level to avoid roof-mounted equipment that could become storm hazards.

Chiefs from police and fire answered operational questions. Police Chief Jose Vargas said the new design would add "a lot more, significantly more" property and evidence space and enable in-house narcotics processing and a crime-lab capability that the department currently lacks. Commissioners pressed for a detailed inventory of rolling assets and asked whether some city parking or facility assets might be repurposed rather than consolidated.

Commissioners also raised construction impacts on a small adjacent park and asked staff to prepare more detailed staging and relocation plans for the fire station during Phase I work. The manager and chiefs said temporary facilities and creative staging would be required to maintain response times.

McManus said design iterations allowed shell space to be built now for future fit-out at far lower future cost than adding entirely new construction later. He acknowledged there are trade-offs between design type (tilt-wall, masonry, precast) and cost but characterized these as "within the same ballpark" for the project's category.

Next steps: staff will provide the commission with a more detailed asset list for rolling equipment, a demolition and abatement review, and refined square-footage breakdowns that the commission requested. Those details will be part of the town-hall presentations to solicit resident input before any ballot action.