League City PD looks forward to new building

The League City Police Department is "out of space," and the city's seeking
an architect to get a new police station and emergency-operations center
underway.

The current police building was built in 1989, says Assistant Chief Gary
Ratliff, and was intended to last for 10 years. The city has since expanded
that building to a size of 23,000 square feet, but still, Ratliff says, "We
have literally almost doubled our number of employees [since 1999]. We've
had to move part of our staff over to the old building/"

Ratliff says the new building would have to be about 90,000 square feet to
accommodate the Department's growth in future years. On Wednesday the city
posted a call for architects interested in the project.

Ratliff hopes that, once a firm is chosen, that firm will select a site and
break ground by early 2010.

"We're going to build something that's a little more energy-efficient,
that's a little bit higher-technology as far as IT goes, that has a better
workflow for the employees and the citizens," Ratliff says. He adds that
it's important that the building will include an emergency operations
center. League City currently doesn't have one, which puts a Gulf-area
police department at a disadvantage during hurricane season.

"It's kind of difficult when you're in an area that's subject to hurricanes
in any given year, and we don't have a secure facility for our personnel,
but we have to be here anyway," Ratliff says.