James O. Cooke, IV,
City Treasurer-Clerk
The Northwood Centre site is being prepared for redevelopment by the City of Tallahassee. Sitting on approximately 29.5 acres, the site is bordered by North Monroe Street, North Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Tharpe Street. A key component within this redevelopment is construction of the new headquarters facility for the Tallahassee Police Department. Additionally, the site presents opportunities for new green space, community amenities and other economic development projects.
Approximately 29.5 acres
Zoning: Activity Center (CU 45)
Existing use prior to redevelopment includes multiple commercial / office buildings (one large, multi-story commercial building; four smaller, free-standing commercial buildings) with abundant surface parking
TPD has conducted operations from the headquarters on Seventh Avenue since 1972. Over the past several decades, maintenance challenges and space constraints to support modern public safety services have continued to mount within the current building. The department has grown considerably in terms of the number of employees and the variety of services it offers to the community since moving into the current facility, which was originally designed for other purposes and is nearly 100 years old.
During an evaluation of TPD's current headquarters as part of its strategic planning process, it was identified that the future home for TPD needed to serve a much broader purpose and a new facility with community amenities was needed.
To meet operational needs and best serve the public, the City of Tallahassee began the process of selecting and assessing site options and gathering community feedback.
From 2018 to 2020, the City engaged in an extensive public outreach campaign to solicit input on the construction of the new TPD headquarters facility. In addition to the public comments provided during City Commission meetings, more than 700 emails were received. Multiple community meetings were also held.
Following this lengthy and robust community engagement process, the Northwood Centre site, which the City purchased at auction for $6.8 million in April 2019, was chosen to be the future home of TPD's headquarters.
Following the conclusion of the site selection process, staff embarked on the pre-design phase of the project, while continuing outreach to adjacent neighborhoods, schools and businesses. Pre-design included gathering technical information on existing site conditions, such as geotechnical data, traffic flow and land surveying. It also included updating the spatial needs assessment, originally conducted in 2017, to further refine plans with the goal of ensuring an efficient and cost-effective facility that would support both current and future need
Visioning continues for the future of the Northwood parcel. As a follow-up the project’s most recent community meeting, hosted in January, the City of Tallahassee held another community meeting on March 29 to provide a project update and share feedback gathered to date. The meeting took place at the Tallahassee Senior Center (1400 North Monroe Street).
More than 200 residents attended the meeting in January, and many more have submitted comments via email and the online survey. Nearly 100 residents attended the meeting in March. This feedback is being used to guide long-term master planning efforts for the area. Continued community participation will ensure redevelopment evolves to best serve residents.
In addition to being home to the new TPD headquarters, the site presents opportunities for green space, community amenities and other economic development projects. The City will use community input to aid in the development of a long-term master plan for the parcel.
For those unable to attend the meetings, feedback can be emailed to NorthwoodProject@Talgov.com.
Demolition is part of the pre-design phase. Staff has worked diligently to ensure that demolition materials and equipment were reused, repurposed or recycled to the maximum extent practicable, consistent with the City's recently adopted Green Building Policy.
In addition to demolition of the structure, the City worked hand-in-hand with the Centre's tenants to address occupancy, removed an underground petroleum storage tank and continued coordinating with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection on subsurface contamination caused by a former dry-cleaning facility.
Concurrent with the pre-design process, extensive community outreach continued to ensure MWSBE and disadvantaged worker goals would be met. Activities included but were not limited to meetings with the Big Bend Minority Chamber of Commerce, Office of Economic Vitality, TEMPO, Lively College, Leon County Sheriff's Office, CareerSource, Tallahassee Community College, Leon County Schools and the FAMU Small Business Development Center, as well as the development of a talent recruitment website.
Work continues of the design of the new TPD headquarters. Updates on the facility are anticipated to be available in spring or summer 2022.
The community feedback currently being collected will aid in the development of preliminary master plan options for the remainder of the site. Community engagement activities will continue, with additional meetings anticipated throughout the first half of 2022. If you would like to provide feedback now, please send us an email at NorthwoodProject@Talgov.com.