Grand Traverse County starts LaFranier Road campus for emergency, operations centers

Grand Traverse County broke ground Tuesday on a LaFranier Road campus that county leaders say will directly affect how quickly 911 calls, emergency response and county operations are coordinated when storms, crashes or other crises hit Garfield Township and the wider county.

The $27,795,000 project, known as Project Alpha, will add two buildings behind the current Health Services Building on LaFranier Road: a 13,500-square-foot Emergency Operations and Communications Center and a 38,000-square-foot Centralized Operations Building. The EOCC will house Grand Traverse County Central Dispatch and Grand Traverse County Emergency Management in one modernized, secure facility, while the COB will bring together Facilities Management and the Commission on Aging’s Outdoor Services Program, which are now operating in separate locations.

Commissioners this spring approved a guaranteed maximum price and authorized bonding of up to $30 million, giving the county room for contingencies and bonding costs. County officials have also planned solar panels for both buildings and an on-site well that can provide irrigation water and backup potable water if public water service is interrupted.

The timeline now stretches into 2027. The county had expected construction to begin in mid-April, but work is starting May 12, 2026. The Centralized Operations Building is expected to be finished next spring, while the Emergency Operations and Communications Center is slated for completion in early summer 2027.

County leaders have framed the campus as more than a construction project. By consolidating dispatch, emergency management and operational services in one place, the county is aiming for faster coordination and long-term cost efficiencies in the same part of Garfield Township that already serves as a hub for county services.

The move also sets up a separate change at the Grand Traverse County Civic Center. Once Facilities Management relocates to LaFranier Road, the county plans to repurpose the current facilities building for a Norte bicycle education center. That building is expected to support a pump track and bicycle safety garden planned for the north end of the Civic Center, with Norte handling the renovation and ongoing use after the county awarded the group $50,000 through its marijuana grant program in December.

For residents, the clearest near-term change is not the campus itself but what it is designed to protect: county dispatchers, emergency managers and support staff working in a facility built to keep public-safety operations running when other systems fail.