It’s expected to house all Police Department employees under one roof.
New home of the Frederick Police Department (formerly the William Donald Schaefer Building)
(Photo from Banta Campbell Architects)
Frederick, Md (KM) It’s on time and on budget! That’s how Frederick Police Chief Jason Lando describes the renovation work on the new Police Department headquarters. He says the new facility at 100 East All Saints Street is expected to open May 1st, 2025.
“The entire building is so different,”: the Chief says. “We’re moving from 25,000 square to about 67,000 square feet.”
During a recent appearance on WFMD”s “Morning News Express.” Lando said the new building has enough room to house the entire Police Department staff under one roof. “Then I think that will really help us work on that team cohesion and that family atmosphere,” he says.
Right now, the Chief says the detectives work inside a building across the street from the Frederick Police Department’s current facility at the County Court House. He also notes that the agency’s dispatchers work at the Law Enforcement Center on Airport Drive East. “When you talk to them, they’re kind of feeling like they feel disconnected from the FPD family,” Lando says. “We’re going to have a dispatch center in-house and we’ll be able to bring everyone–all of our professional staff, our detectives—everyone will be back under one roof.”
Chief Lando says that’s one way he can keep in contact with his staff. “Being able to just go up a floor and pop in and say ‘hi.’ is going to be really good. You know as a chief that would be really nice,” he says.
Along with having all staff in one location, Lando says the new building will have a large training room. “Any training we want to do, we have to go out to our police academy. And this is a little bit of a hike. Our folks that want to do training in-house will be able to host other agencies,” he says.
If can also serve as a community room. “When it’s not in use as a training space, it will be a community room. So if we have a our community events, or even some of our smaller non-profits that need to do some training or whatever, they’re welcome to use our space if they don’t have their own. So it really kind of ties us closer to the community,” Chief Lando says
And it looks like it will come in on budget. “We ordered all the furniture, and the furniture came in within budget. And we even have a little bit set aside for any emergency overages. So far, we haven’t really had to dip into that, and I hope we don’t have too,” says Lando.
The new Police Department Headquarters was formerly known as the William Donald Schaefer Building, and at one time, was the home of the Maryland Department of Social Services. The City of Frederick purchase4d the building in November, 2021.
By Kevin McManus