A move to put up a new regional command center for the El Paso Police Department is taking an important step forward in the acquisition of the land where it will be built.
Members of the El Paso Independent School District have now given their approval to selling a site on the northeast side of the city at 7024 Cielo Vista Drive that was once the campus of the Bonham Elementary School.
EPISD announced it was closing the more than 60-year-old Bonham in late 2021 as part of a district-wide consolidation effort, subsequently combining it with the MacArthur Middle School. The mostly one-story building has remained vacant ever since.
The new police station is being paid for out of a more than $413 million public safety bond that was approved by El Paso voters in 2019. Of that amount, just over $90 million is targeting construction of a new headquarters for the police department, while $24 million is set for the building of a new central regional command station.
This week the City of El Paso has closed on project design submissions for the building of what will be the new 100,000-square-foot police headquarters.
Police Department officials have noted that most of the projects funded by the 2019 bond are efforts to replace well-used and aging structures: the department’s headquarters at 911 N. Raynor Street is in a nearly 80-year-old building; while the Central Regional Command Center at 200 S. Campbell was originally built in 1894.
An exact construction timeline for the station that will replace the Bonham school has not yet been announced.
By Garry Boulard
