Virginia Gazette News |

Williamsburg leaders, community celebrate new police station with beam signing

WILLIAMSBURG — The Williamsburg community came together Friday morning to recognize the progress on a new city police station, which is slated to open in the fall of next year.

“Today we are celebrating the tremendous progress that has already been done to create a state-of-the-art police station,” Williamsburg Mayor Douglas Pons said to a crowd of around 75 people gathered at the Lafayette Street site.

The team of Henderson Inc. and Moseley Architects is designing and building the new station, which is expected to cost roughly $19.2 million. Work at the site began in April with excavating the basement. The foundation is next.

The city marked the progress Friday by signing a beam that will eventually go just above the basement in the new 43,400-square-foot station and support the building for the entirety of its existence, officials said.

Williamsburg Police Chief Sean Dunn said the new facility will help the department carry out its mission of contemporary community policing.

“We’ve been in our current building since 1978, and we have certainly outgrown it. It doesn’t have the infrastructure, the technology, the space to accommodate us to do 21st century and community policing,” Dunn said.

He explained that his department takes a proactive approach to policing, acting as not only enforcers, but also as community ambassadors to provide people with needed resources in many situations.

“For me, community policing is all about building relationships, building bonds with members of our community, increasing our trust and that relationship to allow us to serve our community better,” Dunn said.

“But also, (the) 21st century is about looking at the police department (through) a much more broad lens to ensure that our training is in line, our recruitment is in line, our facilities are in line — that everything we can think of is where it needs to be to ensure we’ve got our officers who are well, they’re positioned to do the job, they’re highly trained … to support the function of community policing.”

The current station, at corner of Lafayette Street and Armistead Avenue next to the Williamsburg Regional Library, is a dated structure that has outlasted its use. It will be demolished once the new station is operational.

Dunn said the new station will give the department the resources they need to better serve the community.

Among the new facility’s updated infrastructure and technology, according to Dunn, will be more comfortable interview rooms “so when we’re dealing with children — maybe who have been victimized or adults who have been victimized with very sensitive situations — we will have a softer room to be able to handle those types of interviews.”

“We’re really excited,” Maj. Ashley Nichols said. “We’re going to have a whole new patrol space as well as more technologically savvy criminal investigations bureau space. So, we’ll have more interview rooms, more technology inside of our department to help us with our investigations.”

The new station will also have space dedicated to officer wellness, including a fitness facility.

Williamsburg’s Vice Mayor Pat Dent commended the department for their persistent service to the community.

“They’ve been dealing with an aging facility, but they continue to serve the community with the same dedication and commitment regardless of the facility they were in,” Dent said.

“We hear all the time from citizens how they interact, they build relationships, so when someone does have an issue, they have the neighborhood resource officers,” he added. “They can pick the phone up and call them or email them. It’s not all about enforcement.”

Sam Schaffer, samuel.schaffer@virginiamedia.com