Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office
Public Safety Service Center

The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office employs hundreds of Minnesotans who patrol the County, work with police departments, run investigations, manage the crime lab, patrol waterways, and oversee the violent offender task force. The new 100,000 square foot Public Safety Service Center will support these agencies, as well as a communications center, armory, and SWAT team, and provide storage for over 115 vehicles and trailers.

This new facility replaces the former Enforcement Division, previously located in Brooklyn Park—which, due to significant growth in personnel, equipment, and investigative activity, made the facility obsolete.

The new Public Safety Service Center is located on the County Adult Correctional Facility campus. To make space, a former work release building was deconstructed by Better Futures Minnesota.

Better Futures Minnesota is a non-profit social enterprise dedicated helping high-risk adults with histories of incarceration, substance abuse, chronic unemployment, and homelessness; and reintegrating them into society, by providing a platform to help them succeed. A core part of its program is on-the-job training, including deconstruction—which was heavily utilized on this project.

The deconstruction process involves carefully taking apart a building to recover reusable materials. It requires specialized skills and equipment to ensure the safe removal of materials without causing damage. The materials salvaged by Better Futures Minnesota are sold in its ReUse Warehouse, diverting about 700 tons of building materials a year from area landfills and providing revenue to help support the nonprofit’s outreach and supportive services.

The county has also set workforce participation goals for this project of 32% BIPOC (black, indigenous, and other people of color) and a 20% female workforce. While the project does not complete until early 2025, we are projected to exceed the overall goals, having a 50% BIPOC workforce and 10% female workforce throughout the project. We also solicited bids from Small Business Enterprise (SBE), Minority Business Enterprise (MBE), and Women Business Enterprise (WBE) companies, adding up to 8.75% of the overall contractors.

Stahl is deeply committed to a diverse workforce and fully supports Hennepin County’s efforts on this project. This engagement creates meaningful opportunities for the community and increases the number of women and people of color in the construction trades—a true win/win for diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Building a Greener Community

As part of the County’s Climate Action Plan, the new facility includes exterior and interior electric vehicle stations, full photovoltaic/thermal retention hybrid panel arrays, a geothermal system for energy efficient heating and cooling, carbon emission reduction through electrification, and native plants and tree conservation to limit gas use.

The former Brooklyn Park headquarters, adjacent to the County’s recycling and transfer station will be replaced with an anaerobic digestion facility to convert food waste to natural gas.

Innovation in Action

Due to supply chain issues, there was a procurement delay for the detention doors. To address this problem, we collaborated closely with the supplier and secured a spot in the queue for the doors prior to completion of the final shop drawings. The supplier furnished the necessary specifications, allowing us to proceed with wall construction, accommodating for the installation of the new detention doors.