Port will bid out security center
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The Port of Greater Baton Rouge’s board voted Thursday to give the port director authority to solicit bids on its planned Maritime Security Operations Center.
The vote came after the Legislature approved $2 million in funding for the project, which will also get $1 million in grants from the Office of Homeland Security. West Baton Rouge Parish also has invested almost $500,000 in the single-story building that will be converted into the three-story center.
The three-story emergency command center will be an assembly point for command-and-control operations of various state, federal and local agencies involved in maritime emergency situations. It will also serve as dispatch facilities for all West Baton Rouge Parish firefighter and law enforcement agencies.
The port has spent $250,000 on engineering and design work and will kick in whatever else is needed for the project. The budget on the project has been anywhere from $3.3 million to more than $4 million, though the high end came from estimates during the run up in construction costs after Hurricane Gustav, Port Director Jay Hardman said.
Hardman said the project could start as soon as the fourth quarter of this year and take between eight and 12 months.
Commissioner Larry Johnson, who made the motion and received unanimous approval to put the vote on the agenda, said it was important to get the project moving as quickly as possible because the weather tends to be dryer in the summer, which would mean fewer construction delays.
The item couldn’t be put on the agenda because House Bill 2 hadn’t passed when the agenda was put together, Johnson said.
The command center will be built on the 8,000-square-foot, single-story original administrative building adjacent to the port’s current offices. The building was last home to the West Baton Rouge Chamber of Commerce.
The two upper floors will serve as a security operations center for any area emergencies along the Mississippi River. It could house large groups of emergency personnel for extended periods.
The bottom floor will be West Baton Rouge’s dispatching operations, culminating several years’ worth of efforts to centralize those offices.
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