Manassas moves ahead with its nearly $24 million public safety center. A sign of things to come at Holmes Heights? 

MANASSAS — City officials are set to release $2.2 million bond monies to fund the design of the new public safety center on Grant Avenue. 

Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum, PC, (HOK) was chosen as the architects of the new building. The firm recently completed buildings in Fairfax County like the county’s public safety headquarters; the Fairfax County McConnell Public Safety Transportation & Operations Center. 

The firm also designed Atlanta’s landmark Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

The nearly $24 million center will be built on the site Safeway grocery store and the old Manassas flea market in the Grant Avenue Shopping Center. The city purchased the building in 2016 for $3.2 million with the intent to demolish it. 

The new building will have four stories and include room for five new officers, new rooms for training and evidence, and more storage space to replace the outbuildings the department uses today at its current home on Fairview Avenue. 

At 63,000 square feet, the new building will be nearly double the size of the current police headquarters. It will also an exterior memorial to honor all first responders in the city. 

City leaders say this will be a major improvement to the Grant Avenue corridor, one that has been eyed for redevelopment. Torti Gallas + Partners, architects of Lyon Place at Clarendon in Arlington, has agreed to design a master plan for the area called Holmes Heights for $25,000 to be paid by the city, should city leaders decide to move ahead with the project.

Years ago, Grant Avenue was a key entrance to Manassas before the opening of the Prince William Parkway in the early to mid-1990s.

The new building is funded in the 2019 capital improvement plan. It’s scheduled to open in 2012. 

The city’s entire police force will transfer into to new building once it opens. The old police headquarters will be used as city government offices.

City Police Chief Douglas Keen told us last year that his department has been in need of more space since 2003. This new public safety center was first introduced into the capital improvement plan in 2013.

City leaders are expected to vote to transfer the design funds at City Council meeting scheduled for 5:30 p.m. on Monday, March 27, 2018.