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St. Petersburg’s finest lifted the curtain on their new home, two years in the making, March 22, and local architecture firm Harvard Jolly Architecture added another law enforcement feather to its cap.
Located at 1301 First Ave. N., the 168,000-square foot, $78.5 million St. Petersburg Police Headquarters is the latest of more than 10 police and sheriff’s department facilities designed by Harvard Jolly, a firm that has a long history of government and public projects, such as hospitals and schools. The company also drew up the plans for the Gulfport, New Port Richey and Gainesville police headquarters, among others around the state. The builder of the St. Pete station was Ajax Building Corp.
Harvard Jolly President Ward Friszolowski says the building’s yearlong design process was a comprehensive team effort that involved around 20 people, including civil engineer George Young and Emmet Van Aken, who served as lead architect and project manager. The project came in under budget, he adds.
“Harvard Jolly Architecture was able to use our police facility and public safety experience as well as our team’s experience to give the city of St. Petersburg confidence that we were the most qualified for the project,” Friszolowski tells Coffee Talk.
In addition to being designed and built to withstand a Category 5 hurricane, the facility should be able to accommodate the police department’s evolving needs for many years to come, Friszolowski says.
“There are few load-bearing walls, and we designed ‘movable walls’ to allow department to grow or shrink as needed in the future,” he says. “These movable walls are attractive, soundproof, include glass and don’t look like they are movable.”
It’s also one of the most environmentally friendly buildings in downtown St. Pete, with a solar-power array consisting of 1,450 panels — “the largest solar application by the city of St. Petersburg,” Friszolowski says. “The building has many other sustainable features and is going through the Green Globes Certification (similar to LEED — Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) process.”
(This story has been updated to correct the number of police and sheriff's facilities designed by Harvard Jolly Architecture.)
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