Henrico supervisors approve plans for new police precinct facility after rejecting unsolicited bid

The Henrico Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to reject an unsolicited proposal for the construction of a new South precinct for the Henrico Division of Police and instead awarded a contract for the precinct's construction to a different firm.

That contract for $904,840 with Moseley Architects, based in Richmond, was one that supervisors had been set to approve at their Oct. 11 meeting, following a formal bidding process. But because VBPRO Partners LLC had submitted its unsolicited proposal a week before that meeting, a working group of county officials convened to consider whether County Manger John Vithoulkas should move forward with it instead.

Each person in the working group decided to recommend rejecting the proposal, Henrico Deputy County Manager for Administration Brandon Hinton told supervisors during Tuesday's work session.

“There are times when [private-public partnerships] makes sense,” Hinton said. “The two most significant reasons are one, it saves the county money, and/or two, it saves the county time.”

In addition to not offering significant savings in these areas, the unsolicited proposal did not allow the county as much control over the process, Hinton said.

Aside from construction, necessary aspects of a building (such as security cameras, data and communication needs, a fire monitoring system, and a building automation system) also were “intentionally” excluded, Hinton said. Those elements would have required funding through a separate allocation by the county, he said.

Other critical items needed to meet the current needs of the police division, including shelf space for an emergency communication training center and alternative emergency communications operations center, were absent from the proposal as well.

Construction is expected to begin next fall at the 11.2-acre, county-owned site at 640 North Airport Drive in Highland Springs and be completed in early 2025. County officials were assured that Moseley is ready to undertake the project on that timeline, Hinton said. The new precinct will replace the current one, which the county leases at 561 Eastpark Court in Sandston. The division also has precincts at 7721 Parham Road (West) and 7850 Villa Park Drive (North).

County officials have indicated that the division needed a larger and updated South precinct.