Our team was engaged by St. Croix County to study space needs and develop a phased plan to expand the County’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and 911 Emergency Communications Center. The County sought to modernize their emergency centers and needed adequate space for a worker-friendly environment in a multi-use hub. We developed a plan to implement construction without disrupting critical operations and worked with the County on Phase II implementation of new 911 emergency communications infrastructure.
Our team leveraged existing mechanical and electrical systems, underutilized storage space and an over-sized existing EOC to affordably right-size the dispatch center from three cramped stations in a small, dark room to six workstations (expandable to eight) in a bright, airy room. The design encircles the new dispatch floor with management supervisor offices, a staff break room, and an expanded server equipment room to give the County space to install the next generation of 911 equipment while existing servers continue operating. A second phase of the construction project converted the existing 911 administrative offices and conference room into a functional 20-person emergency operations center. All work was phased to allow dispatch operations to continue uninterrupted including continuity of cooling, power and data systems, as well as sequestering the disruptive noise of construction away from the active 911 call-takers.