- Construction started on a new three-story, 24,112-square-foot facility at Gainesville Police Department headquarters to house growing property and evidence.
- The $19 million project funded by a bank loan and the SSSF Surtax Program is expected to finish by summer 2027.
- The facility will have advanced security features and connect to the main building via a footbridge for secure evidence storage.
Construction is now underway to add a three-story building to the Gainesville Police Department (GPD) headquarters that will house its growing volume of property and evidence.
City officials and community leaders gathered for a groundbreaking ceremony Friday morning behind GPD headquarters. The new 24,112-square-foot facility, with a small footprint between the department’s main building and the 6th Street Rail Trail, is expected to be completed in the summer of 2027. The portion of the trail that shares a block with GPD headquarters will be closed during construction, as well as the visitor parking spaces to the east of the building.
“It’s exciting to be at this point in the process,” said Mayor Harvey Ward in greeting the crowd. “But as I was telling our site manager from Ajax Construction, I can’t wait until we’re out here with a big pair of scissors and we can get to the other end of this process.”
Gainesville Police Chief Nelson Moya also emphasized the long journey to reach the groundbreaking stage, aside from the recent three-day demolition of an existing structure.
“For the last few years, we have been busting at the seams,” Moya said of the department’s 95,000 pieces of evidence, and counting. “This affords us the opportunity to really have good control, air-tight control, so that we do not give rise to any issue with our cases for prosecution.”
In December 2025, the Gainesville City Commission approved funding for the $19 million project through a bank loan secured by the Streets, Stations & Strong Foundations (SSSF) Surtax Program.
“We’re investing heavily in public safety, and we’re doing it with funding from our half-cent sales tax that goes to infrastructure,” Ward said. “Everybody who buys anything in Gainesville, including people who are visiting for football games or anything, helps us invest in our community, for generations to come.”
The building will feature several security measures, including alarms and cameras as well as internal protocol, to provide layers of protection for the property inside, Moya said. It will connect to the main building via a second-story footbridge. “We take care of victims. Everything that has to do with their victimization, all the evidence, is stored there,” Moya said. “So we’d better be on point in how we handle and store it. This facility affords