Douglas County emergency teams move into new public safety building

Douglas County’s 911 dispatchers and emergency managers have moved into a new storm-hardened basement at 3601 E. 25th St., a shift county leaders say is meant to make emergency operations safer, less cramped and better protected when severe weather hits.

Douglas County Emergency Communications and Douglas County Emergency Management now occupy 11,500 square feet in the basement of the new Public Safety Building next to the Douglas County Correctional Facility in Lawrence. The sheriff’s office is expected to move into the building in July, leaving part of the public-safety complex still in transition even as dispatch and emergency planning operations are already running from the new site.

The move matters because Emergency Communications handles enhanced 911 service for the entire county except the University of Kansas campus and radio dispatch for 23 law enforcement, fire and medical agencies. Tony Foster, who directs Emergency Communications, said the new space gives staff room they did not have before, including offices, conference space and a decompression room for communicators who need a break after taking emergency calls. The old location on the second floor of the Judicial and Law Enforcement Center was far smaller and more crowded.

County materials say the basement level was designed as a storm-hardened structure, with 12 inches of concrete surrounding much of the operational area. That protection is meant to help keep dispatch and emergency management online during dangerous weather, when residents most depend on fast coordination among police, fire and medical responders. In a county that also has to prepare for major events and large crowds, officials have framed the building as a public-safety investment as much as a facilities upgrade.

The project is part of a larger county overhaul downtown. Construction on the Public Safety Building began in spring 2025, and earlier planning documents described it as roughly 26,000 square feet. County commissioners approved nearly $82 million in December 2024 for the combined Judicial and Law Enforcement Center and Public Safety Building project, and later reporting put the total at about $89 million after a second-phase budget was approved for the sheriff’s office build-out.

Douglas County newsletter material says the county-city consolidation that formed Douglas County Emergency Communications took effect on Dec. 31, 1994, making the new building another step in a long-running effort to centralize emergency response. For residents, the practical difference should become clearest not in a ribbon-cutting, but in the moments when weather turns rough, calls stack up and the county’s dispatchers need a stronger place to keep the system moving.