Long Time Coming

New OC Sheriff's Training Facility On Solid Track

By Greg Aragon

The Marines are long gone and the Orange County police are ready to move in -- almost.
First they must wait until their new $20 million training facility opens in April. When it does, it will provide classrooms and offices for more than 400 new sheriff academy recruits and office personnel in a single-story 52,000-sq.-ft. masonry and structural steel building.

"We've outgrown our temporary facility, which we've been in for the last 14 years," said Lt. Mike Hiller, academy commander with the Orange County Sheriffs Department. "We've needed this [new building] for a long time."

The new complex, known as the Orange County Sheriff's Training Facility, was designed by GKK Works of Pasadena, while San Fernando-based Bernards Bros. Construction is serving as general contractor and C.W. Driver of Rosemead is in charge of construction management.

The project is located in the central Orange County city of Tustin, 10 mi. from the Pacific Ocean. It is at Warner Avenue and a new road called Armstrong Street, built to front the project. The project is being built on a barren, 15-acre patch of land that was formerly part of the 1,600-acre Marine Corps Air Station, which closed in 1999.

The development consists of four 80-person classrooms, 38 offices and a tape library and multi-media production studio. The facility will also house a 10,600-sq.-ft. multi-purpose space, which will be used as a separate gymnasium, physical training area and dining area but has the flexibility to be opened up into a single auditorium space capable of holding up to 1,500 people.

Dissecting the 430-ft.-long building will be a 17-ft.-high, 317-ft.-long glass "spline" a hallway that will link the facility's different components and also serve as an honor wall to display awards and commemorate the history of the sheriff's department.

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"One of the exciting features of the project will be the spline," said Jason Bone, GKK project designer. "It will be completely open to diffused daylight, so it will be a well-lit space, [which] marches through the structure linking and connecting the various programs of classroom, offices, gymnasium and dining."
The facility, which broke ground in November, is on target for completion in April.
Its exterior was designed with a modern palette of glass, painted structural steel, aluminum panels and gray concrete masonry, which "compliments the idea of the sheriff being a strong government building," Bone said.
Hiller called the design "modern. It's showing that we are being progressive in our way of thinking." Outside the facility, there will be an obstacle course, running trail, a 16,500-sq.-ft. courtyard, and a 151,800-sq.-ft., 364-space parking lot.
There isn't much beyond the building perimeter.
"We're building this project out in the middle of nowhere," said Hai Pham, project manager for Bernards. "When we began [this project] there was no street, no water, no power and the nearest utilities were more than a half-mile away."
He said that for the first four months of the project, while the city installed utilities and built a new road (Armstrong Street), his crews had to use generators and cell phones to get their work done.
"It's like building a project within a project," Pham added. "We are building our building, but around us, the city is building a street, storm drains and sewer lines."