City of Thornton Fossil Ridge Public Safety Facility

The City of Thornton experienced a large growth of families and businesses moving to their community. As the city has grown to become Colorado’s sixth largest city, the Thornton Police Department needed to grow with its community. In 2016, Thornton City Council approved funding for a new police substation and fire department. Roth Sheppard Architects and Saunders Construction were selected as the design-build team for the project.

Design for the facility began in September 2016. Saunders and Roth Sheppard worked diligently to provide Thornton with a highly functional and aesthetically appealing building that met the allowable budget.

Construction began in July 2017, and one month later, construction crews discovered what turned out to be the first recorded Torosaurus find in the State of Colorado, which is the most complete and best preserved ever found. This attracted an endless amount of media attention onsite for several weeks. Though this discovery was an exciting moment for the design-build team and the City of Thornton, the project team kept the owner’s schedule at the forefront. Keeping the project on schedule during this event was critical, as nearly 60 police officers, many of whom will be graduating from the police academy, were expected to be stationed at the new facility.

This shared building is a single-story facility that houses a police substation and a full fire department. The Saunders team worked with both departments collectively throughout the project. The police and fire areas are distinct from each other, as they have vastly different operational needs.

The police station is highly secure with a holding area, office spaces, detective stations, field training, and interview rooms. The fire station scope includes a kitchen, day room, sleep rooms, showers, and tool rooms. This fire station also includes a decontamination room with specialty equipment to properly clean gear after each emergency response.

There are also shared spaces for both departments that include a workout area, locker rooms and a community room.