Daytona Beach, FL - It's been over a decade since the Daytona Beach Police Department moved its headquarters out of Midtown towards the west side near Interstate 95 and Mason Avenue.
Now DBPD has a new precinct in Midtown, taking over the same location on Orange Avenue which used to house the Florida Highway Patrol and was also used as an office for the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles.
DBPD Chief Craig Capri says the location - which is off Nova Road just east of Tuscawilla Park - should greatly improve officers' response times to help calls in Midtown moving forward.
"We'll have officers actually working right in the Midtown area," Capri added. "It's going to be a great thing not only for us but for the community."
The city is holding a public ribbon-cutting for the new precinct on 995 Orange Avenue this afternoon (April 3rd) at 4 o'clock, which is right next to where DBPD's main headquarters used to be before moving to 129 Valor Boulevard. Tours of the facility will be available to whoever attends.
The nearly 1,500 square-foot building will cover an area which is usually one of the more active for DBPD in terms of calls, one which was generally covered before now between the main headquarters and the beachside precinct on 510 Harvey Avenue.
"It's much needed," Capri noted. "I can't say how excited I am to have a precinct [in Midtown], a place to call home."
Since the City of Daytona Beach owned the land and building already, the only cost to taxpayers was refurbishing the property. That came out to around $90,000, per Capri, which he noted was well under the $1 million he estimated it would take to find a suitable property, purchase it and build a suitable building.
"Most of the expenses were [information technology]," Capri noted. "The cables and high-speed internet so we could do our reports there and have internet access. [Installing] all our cameras and technology. That was the biggest part."
It features a lobby where residents can file reports or speak to an officer. That will be manned daily between 2 p.m. and midnight for now, but Capri would like to have it open 24 hours a day, seven days a week in the future, depending on how busy the office gets.
