County Debuts New Operations Center

The County of San Diego Board of Supervisors debuted two new 150,000-square-feet, four-story office buildings today at its County Operations Center, which is being redeveloped to replace a cluster of outdated and inefficient buildings. The new buildings were designed and constructed to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold standards.

“These new buildings are wonderful examples of environmentally-friendly architectural design and will be at the new gateway to the campus,” said Chairwoman Pam Slater-Price.

This $188.5 million first phase of the COC development construction project includes the two office buildings, a new central plant, utility infrastructure, and a multi-level parking structure with more than 1,800 parking spaces, which will be complete in February. 

Nine County departments and their 1,100 employees will start moving into the buildings this weekend. The departments include: General Services, Library, Aging & Independence Services, Sheriff, Purchasing & Contracting, Public Works, Auditor, Environmental Health and Parks & Recreation.

“Co-locating many of these departments allows the County to operate more efficiently,” said Vice-Chairman Bill Horn.

Supervisor Ron Roberts, a former architect, said, “For decades to come now, the new County Operations Center will provide the public with better accessibility to key services.”

The environmental design extends to the landscaping.

“In this third year of drought, the design team selected low-water-consumption and low-maintenance plants and groundcover, which serves as an attractive example to the public,” said Supervisor Dianne Jacob.

“This project created hundreds of construction jobs and will ultimately save taxpayers money by replacing aging, inefficient buildings with a modern, energy-saving campus,” said Supervisor Greg Cox.

The next phase of construction will involve the two buildings that mirror the ones that debuted today and a 15,000-square-foot conference center.