Various police departments to temporarily relocate while new headquarters built

Mayor Tom Arceneaux has identified sites to relocate much of the Shreveport Police Department while the city moves forward with plans for a new police headquarters at 1234 Texas Avenue.

“Our staff personally toured more than a dozen potential locations throughout the city and has identified locations where we can relocate SPD’s employees with a minimum of remodeling,” Arceneaux said in a news release. “That lets us begin the relocation process quickly, which in turn gives our police employees a better place to work more quickly.”

Arceneaux said in a recent interview that the biggest challenge was finding temporary homes for the patrol division.

“The biggest issue and the biggest group of people is patrol,” Arceneaux said.

One of the patrol divisions will relocate to the former Sunset Acres Elementary School at West Canal and Sunnybrook.

“Sunset Acres is an old school, but there is a relatively new wing that’s in very good shape that we think we can make arrangements with the school board for,” Arceneaux said.

Another division will move to 3313 N. Market St., a former doctor’s office owned by Willis-Knighton Health Systems.

“We are on the verge of securing a CVS location on Mansfield Road for one of the other patrol divisions,” Arceneaux said.

That third location, at the corner of Mansfield Road and Bert Kouns Industrial Loop, will house half the patrol division. The other two locations each will house a quarter of the patrol division.

Arceneaux said that two other divisions — Traffic and the Office of Special Investigations — already had new facilities in the works.

“Traffic should be moving before the end of the year to a new building that has been built for them out on Monkhouse Drive,” he said. “The OSI also had a building that was being refurbished. We think they will be moved by the end of the year.”

Arceneaux’s administration has recommended a portion of a building at 2301 Kings Highway, at the corner of Mansfield Road, for the Investigations division. The building is owned by BRF.

“It is a really good building in really good shape, just about move-in ready,” Arceneaux said.

The recommendation for the Support and Administration divisions is a portion of an office complex located at 1120 South Pointe Parkway, between Dee Street and Knight Street behind the Shreve City shopping center.

“That will take care of most of it,” Arceneaux said of the police department.

Arceneaux said his staff is negotiating leases with the owners of the proposed locations. Leases for the Patrol sites will be 12 to 15 months since the Patrol will move to the three police substations when they are constructed.

The other leases will be approximately three years to accommodate the construction of the new headquarters.

The estimated cost for this relocation process, including lease payments, any required interior remodeling and moving expenses is unknown at this time, according to the news release. However, a significant portion of the costs will be offset by eliminating the maintenance and utility costs associated with the current Texas Avenue location.

“We are in the process of moving all of those people and securing the leases,” Arceneaux said. “Before the end of the first quarter of 2025, everybody will be out of 1234 Texas. That’s the plan. They will move in stages as their locations are ready.”

Moving personnel from the Texas Avenue building will clear the way for plans for the new headquarters at that location to advance.

“We began the design process for the building that will be built in April of 2023,” Arceneaux said. “The architect got started in January of this year. We continue reviewing and modifying those plans to fit within the budget.

“We will continue to maintain the building as best we can until everybody’s gone.”