A $5 million project to relocate and consolidate Arlington County’s infrastructure for responding to emergencies is expected to begin later this year.
The county’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and Department of Public Safety Communications and Emergency Management, along with a new Situational Awareness Intelligence Unit (SAIU), are all moving into the Bozman Government Center.
Project plans call for new workstations, servers, public safety radio equipment and a generator on the sixth floor at 2100 Clarendon Blvd. Construction is expected to begin this fall.
“The purpose of the move is to expand the County’s watch desk and EOC capabilities and add new public safety technology that will allow for a better coordinated response during emergencies,” county spokesperson Aisha Mbowe told ARLnow.
This is included in the county’s 10-year Capital Improvement Plan, part of larger plans to improve and unite the county’s emergency response infrastructure. The new space will facilitate in-person collaboration between public safety partners and also function as a public safety command training center.
The EOC and emergency management department are currently located at 1400 N. Uhle Street, less than a quarter mile away from the Bozman Center. The EOC is responsible for coordinating emergency response services with local, state and federal partners.
The new SAIU, meanwhile, will allow “various public safety partners to co-locate in a shared space to monitor, filter, and disseminate key information during a critical public safety event or special event such as a weather emergency or a large-scale public event,” according to the CIP.
Construction is expected to take a year to complete, and the EOC will remain operating at its current address in the interim.
“The County lacks sufficient space for response to emergency events,” County Manager Mark Schwartz wrote in a CIP proposal last spring.
The Bozman Center’s sixth floor is currently occupied by a Network Operations Center, which will relocate to an as-yet-unnamed location in Arlington, Mbowe said.
