Officials from the city of Santa Clarita, Los Angeles County and the LA County Sheriff’s Department gathered Wednesday morning to break ground on the new Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station on Golden Valley Road between Robert C. Lee Parkway and Centre Pointe Parkway.

On hand were Santa Clarita Mayor Laurene Weste, Mayor Pro Tem Marsha McLean and Councilmembers Bob Kellar, Bill Miranda and Cameron Smyth; Fifth District County Supervisor Kathryn Barger; LASD Sheriff Jim McDonnell; and SCV Sheriff’s Station Captain Robert Lewis.

The new 46,000-square-foot Sheriff’s Station will feature a detached 4,000-square-foot vehicle maintenance facility to repair vehicles on-site, a heliport, 9-1-1 dispatch center, a jail and enough space to house the entire Sheriff’s team.

“Our highest priority is your safety,” Weste said. “We are building a state-of-the-art facility and providing our deputies with the tools necessary to keep Santa Clarita one of the safest cities in the nation.”

Santa Clarita Mayor Laurene Weste addresses the crowd at the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station on July 25, 2018.

The city of Santa Clarita and the county of Los Angeles are working together to finance and construct the new and larger Sheriff’s Station, to replace the existing 25,100 square-foot station at 23740 Magic Mountain Parkway in Valencia. The existing station opened in 1972, and at the time, the SCV population was 50,000.

“As of July of this year, the estimated station service area population is at 293,000 residents and rapidly growing to 300,000, which would be six times the population for what it was originally built for,” McDonnell said.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonald speaks at the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station on July 25, 2018.

“As someone who’s worked for Los Angeles County for three decades, this is a day that I know we’ve all been waiting for,” Barger said. “This station is going to be a wonderful way for us to show those who want to go into law enforcement why L.A. County Sheriffs are the best and premium to go into.”

Supervisor Kathryn Barger speaks at the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station on July 25, 2018.

In addition, representatives from the offices of Congressman Steve Knight, State Senator Scott Wilk, State Assemblyman Dante Acosta and State Assemblyman Tom Lackey presented certificates honoring the groundbreaking event.

The event culminated with a golden shovel ceremony to unearth the first soil from the development site.

The new Sheriff’s Station is expected to be completed by 2020 and is part of Santa Clarita’s 2020 Community Strategic Plan.

For more information, visit SantaClarita2020.com.

For additional photos from the groundbreaking, visit the city’s Flickr page at Flickr.com/CityofSantaClarita.