LONGVIEW, Texas — Longview leaders met Wednesday afternoon at the future site of a new Longview police department to mark the groundbreaking of the project.
"This is progress, this is what we do as a city," Longview Mayor Andy Mack said. "You either go forward or you go backward, and Longview is moving forward."
Funded from the 2018 bond election, the $33 million dollar project is not expected to be finished until late 2022.
Still, Police Chief Mike Bishop says once they're able to move in, the new technology and additional space will be greatly appreciated.
"The building we're in now we've actually outgrown several years ago," Bishop said. "So we've had have rental space to run some of our police operations out of."
The current police building was originally built in the 1970s and was meant to house just over 80 officers. Now more than 200 work for the department.
Currently, the police department is renting nearly 9,000 sq. ft. from other facilities. This includes around 2,000 sq. ft. at Pine Tree ISD. Once the new building is complete, that will be a thing of the past.
"This new facility is gonna allow us to all be under in one facility to handle our police operations throughout the city," Bishop said.
The new building will be three stories high and more than 70,000 sq. ft. across seven acres.
Once the new station is finished, the existing police station will be renovated to provide more space for municipal court as well as other city services like human resources.