LAPD headquarters opens: Bratton calls it most expensive in the nation

The Los Angeles Police Department formally opened its new headquarters Saturday.

Chief Bill Bratton bills the $400 million, 10-story building across First Street from City Hall the most expensive, state-of-the-art police headquarters in the country. Bratton said visitors will have limited access – mostly to a police commission hearing room on the first floor and a basement room where they can pick up police reports.

“The idea is to, as much as possible, give the public direct access to places where they need to go in the building," Bratton said. "In the old building, there was a lot of up and down. The idea is to keep the public flow as much as possible in a controlled environment."

You need a security keycard to open almost every hallway door in this new LAPD headquarters.

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The chief also said there’s a specially built top secret room for secure communications with federal agencies or to view national secrets. It’s illegal for him to reveal, or for outsiders to even know, exactly where it is in the building.

The man who oversaw construction is Tom Brennan of the LAPD’s Facilities Management Bureau.
He's most proud of how rank-and-file employees get the best seats.

“All the cubicles are around the outside and taking on the most natural life, and I think that’s one of the nicest features for the employees,” Brennan said.

Most command staff offices don't even have windows.

“One of the tradeoffs actually for the command staff – they get a group of people working for them with a better morale,” Brennan said.

There will be 2,300 sworn and civilian police department employees working in the building. It’s already at capacity. There’s a fitness center and locker rooms, storage for weapons, and interrogation rooms for the Robbery Homicide Division, plus a 400-seat auditorium in a seperate building on the property.

The LAPD, always media savvy, also built a fully equipped television studio with cables that run to the street so local and national TV live trucks can transmit the images.

Brennan said there’s a lot of hidden security too in this "post 9/11" facility.

“If we walk out to the front, one of the things you’ll see is the waterfall that runs along the front of the property," he said. "Beautiful piece of architecture, fantastic detail that adds to the building, but it’s also a security feature – it’s going to stop a Mack truck. It was designed as a security feature that we found to make look nice.”

A memorial wall with the names of the 202 LAPD officers killed in the line of duty sits adjacent the building, along with a small garden. The department’s left room for more names.

The chief’s office is on the 10th floor. It includes a giant LAPD chief’s badge engraved on a glass wall, another giant badge engraved on the wooden door to the office, and a terrace that faces City Hall. To the west, police can peer across the street at the Los Angeles Times building. Bratton likes that.

“It allows us to keep a close eye on the L.A. Times," Bratton said with a laugh. "Look at City Hall, City Council out one side of the building and the L.A. Times out the other side, and meantime we can come and go out the back of the building so they can’t see us. So it works out well.”

Standing nearby for the tour, Joel Rubin of the Los Angeles Times immediately responded.

“We’ve got our telescopes too, chief.”

Rubin covers the LAPD for the paper.