$40 million public safety center breaks ground in Manassas

The ground has been broken for a new $40 million public safety center in Manassas.

Elected officials joined chiefs from the city’s police and fire departments to lead a ceremony marking the start of construction for the a new facility on Grant Avenue, just outside of the city’s historic district.

“At a time when many are talking about taking away from police, this city has shown its commitment to add to it,” said city police chief Douglass Keen.

There campus will have two buildings – a main four-story building and an auxularly building. Both the police and fire departments, and the city’s information technology workers will be housed in the new complex.

The center will replace the current police station at Fairview Avenue and Signal Hill Road, built in 1990. Once vacated by police, the building could be used by the city’s school system.

“This building will add to the south side of the city,” said Mayor Hall Parrish II, who recalled the memory of the late former city councilman Steven Randolph. “The south side, as he called it, is something he championed.”

The site of the new public safety center was once home to a Safeway grocery store. Before it was razed, a flea market occupied the old building that once stood where the new center will be built.

In 2016, the city paid $3.2 million for the site. Crews removed the old Manassas flea market sign on the day the sale was announced.

Construction on the new building should take about a year and a half. The cost of construction has more than doubled in the past three years, as 2017 estimates showed the project would cost about $19 million.

The new building was designed by HOK, which has designed LaGuardia Airport Terminal B expansion in New York City, as well as Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

“This development will set a precedent as to how this city will grow,” said Robert Karamistos, the building’s architect, who complimented the city’s quaint downtown mixed with new, suburban development. “Many cities are trying to build what you already have.”