NEWARK, NJ — On March 30, Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura was joined by County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo Jr. to outline plans to construct a new patrol headquarters. The building will provide officers in the Sheriff’s Patrol Division with modern accommodations and will contribute to more efficient policing operations.
“The county police have been operating from the Parks Administration Building since it opened over 100 years ago. With all the expanded duties and additional demands that have been placed on the police force through the decades, the Patrol Division has simply outgrown its outdated quarters,” DiVincenzo said in a press release. “We want to make sure our sheriff’s officers have the proper resources to help keep us safe, and this new facility will provide modern accommodations and efficient room to operate.”
“This new and strategically located Patrol Division headquarters will further propel our entire department into 21st-century community policing,” Fontoura said in the release. “Mayor (Ras) Baraka and the Newark City Council are excited, as we are, that our great city’s West Ward will now have a centrally located precinct that will be fully staffed by our Patrol Division Detective Bureau and our countywide Traffic Bureau, and fully equipped with all the most modern public safety and crime prevention tools.”
The new headquarters will be located on the corner of Market Street and Myrtle Avenue in Newark’s West Ward, and will be across the street from the Donald M. Payne Vocational Technical School that currently is under construction. The one-story, 8,000-square-foot building will be a fully functioning police station with holding cells, locker rooms for officers, a roll call area for officers to gather at the start of their shifts, expanded storage areas for records, evidence and equipment, conference room and offices.
The Patrol Division offices have been located in the Parks Administration Building at 115 Clifton Ave. in Newark since the building opened in 1916. The division occupies part of the first floor and basement, and the cramped conditions are not conducive to efficient operations, according to the release
Comito Associates from Newark received a $177,500 contract to design the Sheriff’s Patrol headquarters. Aps Contracting from Paterson was awarded a publicly bid contract for $3,585,285 to construct the building. The Essex County Department of Public Works will oversee the project to ensure it is completed according to schedule. Funding for the building is being provided through the Essex County capital budget. It is scheduled to be completed in January 2018.
Essex County purchased one residential lot on Myrtle Avenue at market rate and acquired other vacant lots from the city of Newark to make the footprint of the new police facility. The home on Myrtle Avenue was demolished earlier in March.
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