New Santa Maria Police Station Almost Complete

Construction crews are almost finished with the new Santa Maria police station on Bettaravia Road in Santa Maria.

Roger Olds of the city of Santa Maria’s engineering department said a lot has been completed since work began on the project two years ago.

“We’ve converted this building of what was an old office from Lockheed Martin into a police facility,” Olds said.

The new station is 70,000 square feet, a drastic difference from the current building on Cook Street that is under 15,000 square feet.

This facility will feature an enormous crime lab, office space that is big enough to grow and add additional officers to the force, and a state-of-the-art room that will help officers seamlessly drop off evidence for investigations.

Angel Vivanca, who works less than a mile from where the new station will be, told KCOY/KEYT’s Cory James that he is excited to have it close by because “if there was a criminal act or a shooting spree, they’d be right there.”

Olds said right now, the city is coming in under budget on the project. He said the next phase is to get the information technology department into the building “to put in all of the computers, cabling, phones, and communication data.”

The city said the project should be complete by mid-summer of 2015.