For Wildwood police officers, moving to their new headquarters is like going from a trailer into a luxury home.
“It even smells good,” said Police Chief Randy Parmer at a ribbon cutting ceremony Thursday morning to dedicate the $7-million building. Yellow crime scene tape was used instead of ribbon.
The department moved from a temporary trailer on the site of its severely burned former station, but the new headquarters represents a larger transition for Wildwood from a cash-strapped city to one now enjoying abundant property tax revenue due to commercial development and home building in the Villages of Southern Oaks.
“We’ve been working out of that fancy single-wide trailer for the last year and a half,” Parmer said. “I don’t want to go back.”
The chief recalled that he was given a tour of the community when he became Wildwood’s chief early last year, but his tour guide was reluctant to show him the station.
Since then, Parmer upgraded the image and morale of the department with new uniforms, better training, tougher standards for applicants and recognition for officers who do their jobs well.
“As Wildwood grows and The Villages grows, we’re going to grow along with them,” he said. “This is for the future of the police department and the people of this city.”
Mayor Ed Wolf remembers when the department operated out of the back of the fire station back in the 1970s.
“This is a very special day for the city of Wildwood,” he said. “We’re extremely proud of it.”
Wolf said the headquarters was a decade in the making, a decade in which Wildwood’s population nearly tripled to 17,000, according to the latest estimates.
Congressman Daniel Webster said the beautiful headquarters offers “a picture of how the mayor, the chief and the citizens of this community feel about their police department.”
Some changes were made during the construction process. A large room for dispatchers now is a workout area after Sumter County took over call dispatching. Space for holding cells now is a patio after the cells were scrapped due to licensing concerns. And the Sergeant sign outside an office was modified to “Not the” Sergeant because it now is occupied by someone else.
The 14,104-square-foot building consists of office-lined corridors with some larger rooms for conferences and evidence storage. One of the larger rooms is filled with gym equipment.
The Don C. Clark training room is named after a man who served two decades as chief and later as a city commissioner.
Clark, who led the Pledge of Allegiance at the ribbon-cutting ceremony, marveled at the spacious headquarters as he toured the building.
Clark recalled that the police department moved from the fire station to the old Wildwood post office and then to a former bomb shelter on Huey Street.
Several years ago, planning for the new police headquarters dragged along slowly. The city bought 6.7 acres on the southwest corner of U.S. 301 and County Road 462 West for $500,000 after the price was reduced when sinkholes were found on the property.
An electrical fire heavily damaged the Huey Street station in October 2018, sending dispatchers fleeing for their lives. A fire-related dispute led to the sudden departure of the police chief and two command officers. An interim chief was hired until Parmer took over the job a few months later.
Charles Perry Partners was hired last year as a contractor at risk to supervise construction.
A simple aluminum building was planned, but the project grew to include a brick facade, community room, a sally port for prisoner transfer and a tower near the entrance.