Washington County Sheriff's Office moves into new building

ABINGDON, Va. – For Washington County sheriff’s deputies, it was a move from worn-down tile, water-damaged walls and cramped, mismatched offices to a Taj Mahal.

Or at least, as close as a rural county sheriff can get to a palatial office in a recession.

The sheriff’s office began operating out of the new digs, at 20281 Rustic Lane, off U.S. Highway 19 just north of Abingdon, on Oct. 14.

“We wanted to look like a professional sheriff’s office,” Sheriff Fred Newman said. “This building will serve our sheriff’s office for many, many years to come.”

With a three-month renovation of the old American Electric Power building of U.S. Highway 19, purchased by the county in December for $2.4 million, the
sheriff’s office is all under one roof in a location Newman said was built “almost like a fortress.”

This fortress of more than 50,000 square feet has been renovated with about $400,000 of asset-forfeiture funds – or Washington County’s share of the money generated by a federal narcotics task force on which two county detectives worked.

In other words, the taxpayers didn’t get the bill for the renovation – only for the 1970s-era building, which also now houses the county’s emergency services, information technology and general services departments.

Newman said relatively little work was needed because the layout designed for the power company was similar to what the sheriff’s office needed – and even includes a dispatch center, which will become the new home of Washington County’s 911 dispatchers this winter.

The project is a bargain, Newman said, especially considering that in official discussions several years ago the cost of building a new sheriff’s office was estimated at $6 million, excluding any land purchase. With that high of a price tag, he said, the county put the project off for the indefinite future.

Until last month’s move, sheriff’s office personnel were scattered in five buildings: an old administration building, jail, garage and an outbuilding on Park Street, and the dispatch was up on Valley Street.

Newman said the county’s law enforcement agency has grown a lot since the days when two small adjoining offices housed the sheriff and deputies, and couples were married outside the closet-sized magistrate’s office next door.

With the need for space outside its tiny century-old building, the office expanded over the years into whatever cobbled-together offices it could find: renovated jail cells, a flood-prone outbuilding, even a nearby garage.

“We piecemealed and put stuff together,” Newman said. “We just made the best we could do with what we had.”

Among those fixes: Computer equipment was set up on cinderblocks to protect it from chronic flooding in the deputies’ quarters.

“The ones who got here early got a seat and the rest of them stood up for deputies’ meetings,” Newman said. “When you wanted to get warm, you came and stood by the stove.”

The new building has central heat and air, and the deputies have a large room with tables, interview rooms and a report room, as well as a large, tech-savvy training room – and no leaky walls.

Each of the sergeants now has a private office, along with higher-ranking sheriff’s office employees.

The new garage includes a place to store and work on the department’s cars and equipment.

“You could comfortably situate every building that we had probably in this garage,” Newman said.

Among the features in the new building that weren’t available in the old: interview rooms, a training room, a dispatch center with a secure walk-up window, a weight room and showers.

“You see the typical big pot-bellied police officer, and that’s certainly not the image we need to portray,” said Newman, who has plans to mandate physical training for his deputies now that the facility is available.

Also planned is a gasoline filling station on the property and possibly, “many years down the road,” a new, expanded, modern animal shelter on the complex.

“We’ve got a nice building. … I think the building is worth every penny the county paid for it,” Newman said. “If you look at the size of the building, if you look at the money our sheriff’s office has been able to put into the building – remodeling, furniture, at no expense to the taxpayer – then it’s a good deal.”

He said the cost of building the same facility today is estimated at more than $11 million.

Now only dispatch has yet to move, a relocation planned for January or February. And even with three other county departments sharing the building, there’s still room for growth on the 8-acre campus.

“It will enhance the ability of the sheriff’s office to serve the general public,” Capt. Jack Davidson said. “It gives us better access to the public, and we are all under one roof now for the purpose of knowing what’s going on … and it kind of solidified all of the divisions together so that we could share more information quicker than what we did before.”

The sheriff’s office plans to showcase the building at a dedication ceremony at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Dec. 1. The guest speaker at the event will be Virginia State Police Superintendent Col. W. Steven Flaherty.

dmccown@bristolnews.com | (276) 791-0701