Plano approves $140 million budget for new public safety campus
Plano gave the green light to a $140 million public safety campus, pairing a new police headquarters with a 911 center and Fire Station 14. The old HQ has not gained personnel space since 2003.
Plano City Council moved its largest public-safety buildout closer to construction Monday, approving a maximum $140 million budget for a new Public Safety Campus and hiring Swinerton Builders as the construction manager at risk. The project is meant to centralize police headquarters, Public Safety Communications, a central utility plant and Fire Station 14, giving the city a single site built for 24-hour operations as Plano continues to grow.
The vote matters because the current facilities were built for a smaller city. Plano Police Department headquarters opened in 1973, then received additions in 1981, 2014 and 2021, but the city says no personnel space has been added since 2003. Public Safety Communications was added to Plano Municipal Center in 1989 and last renovated in 2002. Plano’s 9-1-1 center runs 24/7/365 and is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies.
The pressure on that system is already visible. In 2022, call-takers processed 286,449 incoming calls in 21 languages, including 161,868 calls on 911. City officials have also pointed to the 2022 Citizen Survey, which ranked public safety as Plano’s second-highest priority. The new campus is intended to give police and dispatch personnel room to operate together, while improving coordination for emergencies, training and administrative work.
The campus is part of Plano’s broader 2025 bond program, which voters approved on May 3, 2025, authorizing $647.91 million in general obligation bonds. Proposition B set aside $155.155 million for a new police headquarters and public safety communications facility at the northwest corner of Alma Drive and West Park Boulevard. Bond documents say the new headquarters would allow police and 9-1-1 personnel to work in the same building.
Plano’s project descriptions also call for a 15,000-square-foot Fire Station 14 with five apparatus bays and 12 bedrooms, a design aimed at reducing response times and supporting rapid deployment across the city. The campus would also include a central utility plant, reinforcing the city’s plan to build a long-term operational hub rather than patch aging sites one by one.
Monday’s action was not the first step. On Dec. 16, 2025, council approved a $14.496 million architectural and design contract for the campus, and on May 11 it approved a separate $5.66 million design contract for rebuilding the police training center, another bond-backed public safety project. Together, the approvals show Plano is committing voter-approved money to a new emergency-response footprint that is meant to serve a larger, more complex city for years to come.
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