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City Council OKs purchase of EPISD school for police command center [1]

['Elida S. Perez', 'More Elida S. Perez', 'El Paso Matters']

Date: 2024-04-09  

The El Paso City Council approved purchasing a vacant school from the El Paso Independent School District – the second in less than a year, this time for a police command center.

The city will pay the school district about $4.76 million for the closed-down Bonham Elementary School campus – a 13.2 acre parcel at 7024 Cielo Vista Drive in East Central El Paso. The closing of the school in 2021 was part of the consolidation of MacArthur Intermediate and the elementary in the Cielo Vista area.

The council approved the purchase unanimously without discussion on Tuesday.

“As the city keeps growing East, the regions are going to shift, so we have to plan these projects out for 30 years and we have to look at that (growth),” El Paso Police Chief Peter Pacillas said in an interview with El Paso Matters Tuesday.

The new $24.6 million Central Regional Command Center was approved by voters as part of the $413 million 2019 public safety bond. Pacillas said the current command center at 200 S. Campbell in Downtown will remain in use for metro police and bicycle police.

The cost of the EPISD property, based on fair market value determined by an appraisal report done by the city in November, is part of the project’s budget, City Engineer Yvette Hernandez said.

The El Paso Independent School District is selling Bonham Elementary to the city, which plans to use it as a police regional command center. (Corrie Boudreaux)

Hernandez said the city considered other sites, but Bonham rose to the top of the list based on location and cost. She also said the city is not necessarily looking to buy other EPISD schools for future city projects.

The new command center will be 27,000 square feet and house various police operations, such as a roll call and report area, detective, tactical and sergeant areas, as well as gymnasiums and locker rooms.

Hernandez said the city will work with its design consultants to determine whether the school building can be used as part of the new command center design or whether it should be razed.

“The one thing that we want to make sure of is that we really have the security for our PD and we’re meeting their needs first,” Hernandez said.

The City Council in September purchased the former Morehead Middle School on the Westside from EPISD for $3.8 million. The property is being used as an animal shelter and as a city emergency shelter that could house migrants when needed.

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[1] Url: https://elpasomatters.org/2024/04/09/el-paso-city-council-episd-bonham-elementary-eppd-command-center/

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