MARANA - The Marana Police Facility has been operational for a few weeks, but on Wednesday, November 14 the Marana Police Department held a formal dedication ceremony in celebration of its completion.
“This building is a tribute to this community’s unwavering support and to the support and teamwork of all the Town’s departments,” said Marana Deputy Chief Ruben Nunez, who served as the Master of Ceremonies for the event.
Ground was broken on the $23 million project in June of 2017, but it has been in the works since 2011. Police Chief Terry Rozema said that he saw the need for a new facility prior to accepting the job, and he got the ball rolling for the project shortly after becoming police chief.
Now that the project is complete, the police station is even better than Rozema envisioned.
“I had an idea of what this facility would be like,” said Rozema. “I had this vision of what it was going to be like and how it would work…nothing could have prepared me how amazing this facility is when you actually walk through it.”
The bulk of the facility was paid for with a temporary half-cent sales tax that will be repealed on January 1, 2019. The tax had the support of the public and the business community.
Marana Mayor Ed Honea spoke on the public outreach process prior to initiating the sales tax. “We went to the Chamber of Commerce, we went to HOA’s, we went to [the businesses]. The Chief lobbied every single person in this town. I think he spoke to all 45,000 people! We said ‘what do you think of the idea of a half-cent sales tax, so that when we build this new police facility we are not going to have a debt for 30 years?’ Everybody seemed to agree with it.”
Town Manager Jamsheed Mehta explained that the Town had a number of options as to where the facility would be build, but in the end placing it in North Marana made the most sense from a growth standpoint, as well as the facility being a perfect complement to the Marana Municipal Complex campus.
Also speaking at the dedication were Project Manager Rick Carr from Abacus, architect Michael Rosso of Architekton, and Todd Steffen, the president of CORE Construction.
Chief Rozema said some people have suggested that the building serves as his legacy, but he disagreed with that.
“I really hope that is not my legacy,” Rozema said. “I did not become a cop to build buildings. I didn’t even become a police chief and come to Marana to build buildings…Our legacy, I hope, is one where we have instilled and implemented a philosophy, an ideology and a culture of policing that transcends time. That we go out and provide a level of service to this community that is un-paralleled. To the extent that this building assists us in doing that, then that is part of the legacy.”
