Regional 911 dispatch center purchases $9.1 million Spokane Valley building for new locale

The regional 911 communications system is moving forward with a long -anticipated move to a new facility, regardless of whether the city of Spokane comes along.

Spokane Regional Emergency Communications announced Friday that all operations, including administrators, dispatchers, radio team and emergency vehicles, will be relocated to a 44,000 -square -foot building in Spokane Valley in 2026. The two-story office space cost $9.1 million, which will be covered by agency reserves accumulated over the years, according to the announcement.

The purchase comes as Mayor Lisa Brown and the city of Spokane are in ongoing negotiations with the agency to take control of dispatch services for the Spokane Police Department, the last public safety agency in the region yet to join SREC since its creation in 2018.

The reserve funds used for the purchase have been a point of contention in the conversations between Spokane and the dispatch center. The city initially estimated the agency to have amassed around $33 million, while Spokane County Fire District 3 Chief Cody Rohrbach said the total is around $24 million, as The Spokesman-Review reported in June. Rohrbach is the acting chair of SREC’s governing board.

The reserve includes a transfer of $14 million in funding from Spokane County from previous 911 operations prior to SREC’s formation, the release states.

Brown and the city have argued that the surplus shows SREC’s user fees it charges participating municipalities are exorbitant and function as an unjust tax, based on a city report that found taxes generated within city limits make up roughly 65% of revenue for the regional dispatch center. SREC is funded through a combination of a state 911 excise tax, user fees and sales tax revenue.

SREC leadership responded by saying the surplus was amassed for the dispatch center’s future plans, including the construction or purchase of a new facility.

“SREC’s Board demonstrated great foresight in planning to make the best use of taxpayer dollars,” Rohrbach said in a written statement. “By selecting an existing facility that met our needs, rather than building a new one, we were able to reduce the overall cost of the project by at least $10 million while still delivering a high-quality, technologically advanced space for our operations.”

In an interview, Rohrbach said the purchase of the building provides some certainty around the reserve funds and why they were amassed, and may shift the conversation around the user fees. While the SREC board was not amenable to the city’s proposal to use the reserve to bring down user fees, the board is open to conversations about reshaping the model used to calculate charges for each jurisdiction.

Rohrbach and Maggie Yates, deputy administrator for the city, said conversations between the entities have been productive, and Rohrbach believes the city’s decision could come by the end of January.

Yates added in a written statement that the purchase of the building “does not affect the City’s efforts to address questions regarding service levels and user fees as we conduct our due diligence on behalf of City taxpayers.”

The property at 12809 E. Mirabeau Parkway features enough space to host SREC’s administration, dispatchers, and radio team in one location, according to the release. Currently, radio staffers share space with the Spokane County Department of Emergency Management, while most operations are located in a leased building on the Spokane Fire Department’s training grounds near Spokane Community College.

While there is plenty of room for future growth, the space will need some tweaks before move-in. Construction is set to start in the summer of 2025, the release states.

Rohrbach said the city’s decision on whether to have Spokane Police join the agency will affect just what those renovations look like, will cost and when they will begin. A decision is needed so the agency can also move forward with other elements of planning for its future and how the city fits into it, including staffing, a new region wide computer-aided dispatch system and an upgrade to the center’s phone system.

“SREC’s going to support them either way they go,” Rohrbach said. “We’ll support them in becoming their own public safety answering point, or if they want to become part of the regional system, we’ll support them there.”

“So right now, it’s really just been giving them good information to help inform their decision,” he added.