‘Nipomo deserves this.’ SLO County town is getting its first sheriff’s substation
San Luis Obispo County has a new five-year plan for making needed infrastructure improvements across the county — and Nipomo is getting a new Sheriff’s Office substation as a result.
At its March 11 meeting, the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors approved a five-year facilities and infrastructure plan that includes 78 projects with a total estimated cost of $689 million.
$9.9 million of that budget will go to Nipomo to build a new substation for the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office at the northeast corner of West Tefft and Carillo streets.
“When I came into office almost 15 years ago, I really focused on two main projects,” Sheriff Ian Parkinson said during the meeting. “One is co-located dispatch, which we’re doing with Cal Fire, which you’ve seen the pictures of — an amazing building — and the second was the Nipomo substation, which has been about a decade in the works.”
District 4 Supervisor Jimmy Paulding said the substation represents a significant expansion of the Sheriff’s Office’s operating capacity in South County.
“Nipomo, an area of 18,000 people within the Nipomo Community Services District area, and then about 24,000 people looking at the whole Nipomo Mesa, is becoming a large community, and the Sheriff’s Office has to patrol that community as well as Oceano and the rural parts of South County from the Oceano station,” Paulding said. “Obviously that impacts response times — just the fact that responding patrol deputies are coming from Oceano all the way to the Nipomo is problematic.”
What services will new Nipomo substation provide?
Not all projects included in the five-year will be built within that time frame, according to San Luis Obispo County Public Works Director John Diodati. Some were already completed in 2024, he said at the meeting.
San Luis Obispo County facilities planning manager Lacey Minnick added that over the past year, the county completed 25 projects at a cost of $8 million.
Some projects completed last year include modifying the apparatus bay doors at the Estero Bay fire station, two projects to replace the public safety communications project at Cuesta College and installing an emergency generator at the county’s emergency response center, Minnick said.
The substation project was included in the 2023-24 budget, with an initial budget for early design work of $1.2 million. The supervisors needed to approve a budget adjustment of just over $9.9 million to pay for the building costs over the next few years.
In Sept. 24, the Board of Supervisors awarded a professional consultant services contract to Omni Design, Inc. to develop these early design documents. This effort, along with site-specific detailed environmental studies, is currently underway.
All told, the project will cost more than $11 million, according to the staff report.
Those dollars will pay for secure parking for patrol vehicles, unsecured parking for visitors, office space, interview rooms, a multi-purpose room, community services rooms, administration offices, criminal investigation rooms, volunteer patrol rooms, report room, fitness room, locker rooms with showers, break rooms, staff restrooms, public restrooms, armory, access controls, utility and equipment rooms, storage space and a kitchen, according to the meeting staff report.
Paulding said with funding secured, the project is on track to start construction in 2027, with completion expected sometime in 2028.
“This project is long overdue,” Paulding told The Tribune in an email, “and Nipomo deserves this.”
