GIBP HQ Update
Thirty-nine years ago, as a second-year lifeguard, I watched the current pavilion at Stewart Beach being built. Now we are inside a space that was once a night club, and barely serves our ever-growing operations. The building is almost a decade past its intended lifespan. We’ve thoughtfully considered relocation, but the most cost-effective option is to remain in the existing building until we construct a building that can adequately accommodate our day-to-day operations. But each year we incur significant costs to maintain a building that is no longer functional and has become a safety hazard as well as an eyesore. Galveston deserves better.
Galveston’s Beach Patrol covers all 32 miles of beach 24/7/365, intervenes in a half-million potential accidents annually, and serves over seven million visitors and residents each year. We serve more people than beaches in California and Florida with a fraction of the budgets of those agencies. We also filter between 4 and 5 thousand calls for both EMS and police annually by first responding to medical emergencies and crowd problems, most of which we’re able to “catch and release” without tasking our already overburdened public safety partners. Galveston boasts one of the busiest, challenging, and most visited shorelines in the nation, and the demand increases every year. We will need to keep up.
With more than 140 lifeguards and dispatchers, 120 Junior Lifeguards, and another 60+ volunteers, a safe, 24-hour, all-weather sand-base facility is critical for training, working space, and supervision. To mitigate risk for our children and adults, direct access to the beach and water must be accessible without the danger of crossing Seawall Boulevard while carrying rescue equipment. When covering assigned beachfront zones, rescue vehicles need to stay on the beachfront to relay information and deliver lifesaving equipment while continually protecting beach patrons and guards. An on-beach facility is also critical in providing an unobstructed view to handle weather and medical emergencies, lost children, and command and control of our most populated beach.
The current Park Board trustees have been very responsive to the urgent need for a facility that supports and maintains one of our nation’s most professional lifeguard services. Under their direction we worked with an architecture firm to come up with the schematic design of an incredible professional home for our array of programs that would last 70 years and would include capacity for growth to match the ever-increasing demands placed upon us. Designed to use natural breezes to provide climate control for sections of it, we can both save building costs now, and operational costs for years to come. Potential for resiliency using even more cost saving renewable energy and repurposed water will be built into the design, which could make this a tourist attraction and educational center for the public in its own right.
We’ve been squirrelling away money in our reserve fund for decades to kick this off. I’m so excited to share this design with our board, the city, and the community of Galveston next week! We trust that, despite everything else going on, we can all move forward quickly together on this critical and historical project. For Galveston.
