Public Safety moves offices

The Public Safety office moved Dec. 5 across Glassell Street to make room for the new Center for the Arts.

The university spent approximately $85,000 on a four-month renovation of the new office at 418 North Glassell St., next to the Student Health Center. Public Safety's previous office was closer to the main campus, on the northeast corner of Glassell Street and Sycamore Avenue. The new Public Safety office has provided the department with more room to work.

"There is more space for [dispatchers] to work in and it allowed us to use more and larger video screens," Chief of Public Safety Randy Burba wrote in an email. "There are actually two work stations in the dispatch center whereas the old one only had one." 

The office space was previously used by the Alumni Association, which moved to the Elliot House, a historic home at 204 North Olive St., last March. Restoration of the home totaled about $300,000, wrote Kris Olsen, vice president of campus planning and operations, in an email.

The renovations were needed because both departments, Public Safety and the Alumni Association, have different needs for office-space use.

The old Public Safety office could be demolished as soon as this summer along with the Glassell Apartments and the Walnut Center Strip Mall to make room for the 2.5-acre Center for the Arts.

The move did cost Public Safety some parking spaces but it hasn't had any affect yet, Burba wrote. There is a smaller parking lot behind the new Public Safety office.

"There are less overall spaces but the lot in front of the old building was a short-term parking lot," Burba wrote. "Most Public Safety employees park in Cypress or other lots."

Yesenia Vergara, a senior political science major, said the new location will make it less convenient to get temporary parking permits when in a rush.

"When I have to bring someone else's car if mine's getting fixed or something, I have to get a permit, so I think it's a little inconvenient to walk over there," Vergara said. 

Kim Padulo, a professor of educational studies, said she doesn't think the new location will have any effect on Public Safety's serving students.

"Most of the work they do is out of the office anyway," Padulo said. 

 The $64 million, 1,100-seat center has been planned since May 2009, when the university received a $25 million donation from an undisclosed Orange County couple.