MELBOURNE, Fla. – Melbourne, like so much of Central Florida, has grown so fast – and so has the police department, now with almost 200 officers, out-growing its old buildings.
And while some local communities are saying no to paying for a new police building, Melbourne’s citizens said yes. The city is finishing up two years of construction on a new, modern headquarters that will open before the end of the year.
What will it do for the people it serves?
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Melbourne Police Chief David Gillespie said the new building houses so many efficiencies, concepts and advancements that hadn’t even been thought of when the previous police headquarters were built in the 1980s.
“It’s much different and our needs are much greater today than they were back then,” Gillespie said. “This new building has provided us an opportunity to put all of our operations under one roof, which is great for communication and being able to exchange information.”
Currently the Melbourne Police Department is housed in two separate buildings because the department ran out of room in the first facility. Resources are split. The 911 dispatch center is separated from where the officers are housed.
“And it creates a lot of inefficiencies and a lot of challenges and then you have to maintain two buildings,” Gillespie said.
In 2018 voters approved spending $35 million to build a facility large enough to accommodate the police department for the next 75 years – with everything in one place.
The new police headquarters have interview rooms at the end of the lobby for people, especially victims of crime, to come and report the crime in private.
“It’s a big deal because in our main building right now if somebody needs to come in and report a crime we don’t have any interview room to take them to,” Gillespie said. “This allows us to provide a safe environment that is private and confidential that they can go in and meet with an officer and not be in the lobby with other people to be able to talk about what just happened.”
Gillespie said he hopes the new interview rooms encourage people to feel safe and comfortable enough to come to the police department to report all crime.
“We want people to feel welcome and we do hope that it does help people report crime that may not be reported for some reason,” Gillespie said.
A large community room will allow people to gather at the new facility.
“And it has to be,” Gillespie said. “So if you really are going to walk the walk and talk the talk about forging those relationships with the community and doing community policing, that shows our level of a commitment to our community.”
K-9 deputies will have kennels inside the air conditioning to house their canine partners, and the CSI team will have its own vehicle bay.
“If we need to do any processing to keep them out of the weather and the elements,” Gillespie said. “Sometimes [currently] we would have to keep them outside.”
The new headquarters is officially named the Joseph Pellicano Law Enforcement Center by city commissioners after Officer Pelicano was the first and only officer to lose his life in the line of duty in the city of Melbourne. He was killed in 1986.
Chief Gillespie said Officer Pellicano’s widow has watched the construction progress and is pleased and proud.
Gillespie said the new building should be open by the end of the year.
To read more of Erik von Ancken’s series on Protecting Our Community, click here.
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