Affidavit: Corpus Christi police officer accused of misusing nonprofit funds for personal expenses<\/a><\/p>\nThe 24-hour facility is where people are booked and held after an arrest until they can see a judge.<\/p>\n
City leaders say that to keep that process running smoothly, the building \u2014 which used to be Fire Station No. 5 \u2014 is in need of a major overhaul.<\/p>\n
The facility will receive a new courtroom, additional temporary holding cells, and several electrical upgrades.<\/p>\n
Corpus Christi Municipal Court Presiding Judge Jackie Delano Chapa called the upgrades long overdue.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe current facility is about 4,000 square feet, and our renovations will add about an additional 2,500 square feet. So it\u2019s going to make the capacity a little bit bigger, allow more workspace for the employees and the arrestees,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Chapa added that the detention center books an average of 32 people per day. Due to the nature of the work, she said the improvements will allow for a smoother, more efficient process.<\/p>\n
\u201cA bigger booking area, we\u2019re going to have a bigger area for them to take the individuals\u2019 property to safely secure it. It\u2019s going to allow for a bigger in-person magistration place for the arrestees,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The detention center was previously an old fire station built in 1956, located near Nueces Bay and Leopard Street. The city moved into the space after leaving Wilson Plaza, where it had been housed since 2004 but faced ongoing maintenance issues.<\/p>\n
Corpus Christi At-Large Councilman Roland Barrera said the $4 million renovation is still a more cost-efficient option than building a new facility from the ground up.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe other building, it was quite problematic. It wasn\u2019t safe. They wanted to evacuate all the tenants. We already own the property. We didn\u2019t have to acquire it. There\u2019s already a foundation of property that we can remodel,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Barrera said the city had limited time to vacate Wilson Plaza, but the location of the new facility played a key role in the decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had to do so in a matter of like a week. And so that was one thing we quickly evaluated, and that the proximity was probably one of the best things and the fact that we own the property,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Renovations are expected to begin in January and be completed before July.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"City leaders say that to keep that process running smoothly, the building \u2014 which used to be Fire…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":{"0":"post-90996","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corpus-christi","8":"tag-corpus-christi","9":"tag-corpus-christi-headlines","10":"tag-corpus-christi-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}