Plans for Redondo Beach fire, police stations move ahead; size questioned

by Garth Meyer

Plans are underway to build two new Redondo Beach fire stations and a police headquarters. They will likely be the same size as the buildings they replace, leading to questions Dec. 2 from City Councilmember Paige Kaluderovic.

The council went through details of a staff plan to send out requests for proposals to architecture/design firms/contractors to complete the new buildings by 2030.

The projects could go up simultaneously, the police station intended to be built adjacent to the existing facility – probably in a two-story format – while the two fire stations move to temporary spots as the old stations are torn down. The new ones will be built on the same sites as the current buildings.

Each of these will most likely match the square-footage of their existing counterparts.

“We’re going to build a project that meets our funding,” City Manager Mike Witzansky told Easy Reader, noting the city’s current population. “We’re proportionally right-sized, we’re a fairly built-out community… We’re not Irvine…”

Rounding out the extensive Redondo Beach project is a renovation of the police annex building, across Pacific Coast Highway, next to the RUHS auditorium. All of this is to be funded by a $93 million bond passed by city voters last November. 

Councilmember Kaluderovic asked near the conclusion of the Dec. 2 council discussion about the scope of the new police headquarters.

“The (funding) number that we were given, was that to just reconstruct what we had, because we knew that was deficient, massively, for the personnel,” she said. “So the number that we were given was just to rebuild a massively-deficient sized building?”

Witzansky responded that the city did consider running a higher-priced bond, which could have included a larger new police station, all under one roof, no need for the annex. The estimate for that was $98 million, not including the two fire stations. 

“We chose the (smaller scope) because, from a prudent calculation, we thought that’s what the residents would support…” he said. “In an ideal world we’d have another $50 million to play with.”

“I want to make a point that, that decision was,” Kaluderovic said, not finishing the comment as others began to speak.

Witzansky said that adjustments can be made to shift more money from the annex work to the main police station project, if desired, to potentially add square footage to the main station. 

These decisions would be made during the design process.

Earlier, the council was given a presentation by Griffin Structures, its consultants for managing the project. Dustin Alamo, Griffin vice president, strategic services, said the mission is to deliver the work “on budget, on schedule, with uninterrupted emergency response.”

A request for proposals will go out early next year, seeking a “Progressive Design-Build” partnership, in which a designer and builder work together from the start, with city approvals needed along the way.

For the fire stations, during construction, Fire Station One will take over the staff parking lot at city hall, with modular units and a temporary bay. City staff will park in the underground library structure. Fire Station Two will move to a temporary site at a city-owned lot at the corner of Inglewood and Grant Avenues.

“We don’t anticipate significant impacts,” RBFD Deputy Fire Chief Jason May told the council.

The plan for the Redondo Beach Police headquarters is for the original to remain fully in use until the new station is ready. The request for proposals is expected to give a distinct description of what each project’s parameters are.

“The whole point is to solicit creativity within a defined budget and defined scope,” Alamo told the council Tuesday. 

Bidders will likely be separate for the fire stations and the police building, he said, since firms often specialize in one or another.

Kaluderovic voted to put Measure F.P. on the ballot, after proposing an amendment to take out the police annex renovation, which would have cut it to $80 million. She noted Tuesday that the final number was chosen before the 2024 presidential election and subsequent tariffs. 

Efforts to reach Kaluderovic for further comment were unsuccessful before deadline. ER