Temporary concrete barriers placed around new downtown police HQ

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This article was published 21/12/2015 (3605 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Concrete barriers are now in place around Winnipeg’s new police headquarters, but the eyesores won’t be around forever.

On Monday, crews began placing Jersey barriers — the concrete slabs commonly used to block off highway lanes under construction or create roadblocks in border regions and war zones — around the new home of the Winnipeg Police Service as a temporary means of protecting the structure from vehicular attacks.

The concrete slabs will be removed once the city decides upon a permanent means of protecting the building. The city plans to spend up to $1.9 million next year on devices such as bollards, which are vertical barriers usually made out of concrete and steel.

“The Jersey barriers are a temporary measure until such time as a permanent protective barrier is installed,” a city spokeswoman said in a statement. “The plan is to address this at the same time as public works replaces the sidewalk along the south, east and west sides of the building.”

Ever since the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, most new public buildings in the U.S. and Canada have been protected by bollards or other physical barriers in order to minimize the potential damage wrought by attacks involving vehicles.

The $1.9-million expenditure on physical protection, revealed by the city in October, took the total pricetag for the police headquarters project up to $214 million. The first police unit moved in earlier this month, kicking off a transfer of staff expected to wrap up in June or July 2016.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca