College to Construct Emergency Services Building

SUNY Oneonta’s plan to construct an emergency services building is moving ahead. The one-story, 9,000-square-foot facility will sit at the southern end of the college’s campus in the City of Oneonta and house the University Police Department (UPD), campus Emergency Management staff and the Otsego County Law Enforcement Academy (OCLEA).

A shared training space designed for OCLEA will double as a regional emergency operations center available for municipal agencies. The center would facilitate field coordination, emergency medical services, and emergency management.

UPD and OCLEA are two of several campus units that currently occupy space in Alumni Hall, a building constructed in 1957 as the college’s library. However, in accordance with an institutional facilities master plan, the college has been relocating offices from Alumni Hall over the last few years to create a home for the School of Economics and Business and make possible the consolidation of the Division of College Advancement in one building.

In considering where to move UPD and OCLEA, the college determined that the best option would be to build a facility specifically for law enforcement which, by its nature, is specialized work.

The project will be the first “NetZero capable” new building constructed in SUNY under Chancellor Kristina M. Johnson’s energy goals of lowering energy consumption and reducing greenhouse gas emissions and energy costs. The highly energy-efficient building will include enhanced envelope thermal performance, air source heat pump and radiant panel heat technology, with the remaining electrical consumption provided by purchased or locally generated renewable energy.

The college estimates that the new building will cost $6 million. Although a start date has not been set, the college expects to break ground later this year, with construction lasting about 14 months.

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