(KCPW News) Construction begun on the new public safety building in downtown Salt Lake City on Wednesday morning. Fire Chief Kurt Cook says he’s relieved to see the project starting, because over the past two years, his department has had to respond to 60 emergency calls within the current public safety building itself.
“One of the funniest things is being stuck in an elevator in your own building, ” he said. “And just trying to work through that is a challenge. Or you have to call 911 if you have your phone and then half the time the phones don’t work in the elevator, so that’s a problem. Boy, we’ve had sewage problems, we’ve had the alarms going off arbitrarily, we had a small fire in January in the building, an electrical fire, so we’ve had our fair share.”
Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank says the new building isn’t just important for the department, it’s also important for residents, because it will improve the way police and fire officials can respond to emergencies.
“Part of the challenge that we have is that we don’t even have a big enough meeting space for all the fire and police command staff to get together on a regular basis and to discuss some of those things,” Burbank said. “Floors separate people. This building is built more flat, a little more spread out, and so we’ll have more interaction taking place not only at the administrative level but throughout the building.”
The building is expected to be completed in May 2013. It’s located on the block just east of the Main City Library.
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