View from above: Marco central

Perched at the corner of San Marco Road and Bald Eagle Drive is the Marco Island city government complex.

The new Marco Island Police Department Building opened in July and formally dedicated in August. Aside from the department, it also contains the island’s emergency operations center, built to remain fully operational during a hurricane or other disaster.

Marco Island’s community meeting room, on the first floor of the building, was broken in Aug. 6 when the City Council held its first session in the building. The new meeting hall, which supplanted Mackle Park as the council meeting space, contains sophisticated audio and video equipment.

The city makes video and audio of each meeting available on the Web site, cityofmarcoisland.com, the day after the meeting.

As part of the campus’ redesign, Bald Eagle Drive was blocked off just below City Hall, and the parcel of land it once ran through became the land on which the police department was built.

Photo by ROGER LALONDE, Eagle staff
View from above: Marco central (09-21-07)" title="Buy this photo">Buy this photo »

This is a photo of Marco Island’s city government campus. City Council recently decided to rezone the land to make it unavailable for future commercial or residential development, in keeping with one component of the city’s density reduction efforts.

Story: View from above: Marco central (09-21-07)

The department made the move to the new building from next door, in the public safety building it shared with the Marco Island Fire-Rescue Department. That structure is the top right one in the photo above.

Both departments shared that building starting in 1999, when the police department was created through a tight city referendum. Space was cramped, and members of each department stepped on a few toes while they tried to manage the demands of their separate jobs in one small space.

Marco Island’s City Hall was purchased in 2001 for $1.2 million. The former Bank of America building created office space for many of the departments that also shared space with the police and fire departments in the public safety building.

Today, each building of the campus serves its own distinct purpose, but keeps city departments and entities within a stone’s throw of one another.