Boone County Emergency Services Building Opens

Boone County broke ground Wednesday on a 20,000-square-foot emergency services building that will consolidate the county's 911 dispatch center and Emergency Management operations on the Public Safety Campus.

The facility will house the Public Safety Communications Center and Emergency Management alongside the Sheriff's Office and jail, which already operate at the campus. Construction will take roughly 14 months, with Pepper Construction as the builder and SMP as the design firm.

The building includes a training room that can convert to an Emergency Operations Center during large-scale disasters. Hardened structural areas will withstand wind speeds up to 250 miles per hour to maintain operations during severe weather.

Emergency Management currently operates from a small office suite in the Sheriff's Office building. The PSCC occupies space in the Florence Government Building that county officials say the agency is outgrowing. Once the move is complete, the county will repurpose the Sheriff's Office space for public-facing services, and Florence will use the vacated PSCC space to expand city services.

"In times of crisis, seconds matter," Boone County Judge/Executive Gary W. Moore said. "With Emergency Management and PSCC in the same building, critical connections and updates can happen immediately."