On Monday, the Louisville Metro Police Department officially unveiled its new headquarters in downtown Louisville.
The facility occupies the former AT&T building at 601 West Chestnut Street, nestled between 6th and 7th Streets.
This marks the first dedicated headquarters for LMPD in four years. Officers left the previous building in 2017 after an OSHA inspection discovered sewage leaking from the ceiling.
Since then, LMPD operations have been scattered across several locations throughout the city.
Chief Paul Humphrey said this often created chaos, making staff drive across town to attend meetings.
“The ability to spread information, the ability to have ideas, I call it the ‘Menlo Park Effect,’” he said. “When you look at what Thomas Edison did, there’s a reason why he brought everyone together in the same place. Because when you put really smart people together in the same place, they come up with great ideas and so that’s what this allows us to do. It allows us to work better, more efficiently and more effectively.”
Mayor Craig Greenberg attended Monday’s grand opening and flag-raising ceremony.
He highlighted that the 2023 Department of Justice report on Louisville’s policing practices recommended that LMPD leadership be centralized in a single location.
Greenberg noted that the new headquarters is a clear example of acting on the report’s recommendations.
Currently, only the fourth floor is finished, so the chief’s staff, the Human Resources department, and a few others have moved into the Chestnut Street building.
Funding is already secured for the third floor, where construction will continue, while the second floor will require one more round of funding from Metro Council to be fully completed. Greenberg said the total cost is projected to reach between \$60 and \$70 million.
LMPD expects the relocation to be fully complete within the next two years, at which point more than 600 officers will be based in the new headquarters.
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