Raleigh police to move to temporary home

RALEIGH -- The city's police headquarters will move next year to a building on Six Forks Road in North Raleigh while a new 16-story public safety center is built downtown, Mayor Charles Meeker announced Thursday.

In September, the City Council approved the $6.23 million purchase of the 46,000-square-foot office building from Builders Mutual Insurance. Starting next fall, the building at 6716 Six Forks Road will house the police chief's office, detective division, field operations and administrative services until 2012, when the new public safety center is expected to be completed.

The new center, to be called the Clarence E. Lightner Public Safety Center, will be approximately 305,000 square feet. In addition to police, the building at Hargett and McDowell streets will serve as headquarters for the fire department and will house the Raleigh/Wake Emergency Communications Center.

Last month the City Council approved plans to pay for the early design work on the new safety center with a short-term, fixed-rate loan at 2 to 2.5 percent interest.

The city had planned to seek long-term financing to build the $226 million Lightner center. But given the current state of the commercial paper market, which has tightened because of the nationwide credit crisis, that kind of longer-term financing has become difficult to obtain.

The city is hoping the 12-month note will handle the early stages of the project until the market rights itself.