New Police Welcome Center Opens At The Banks
Strategic Location Provides Greater Interaction Between Visitors & CPD Officers

The Cincinnati Police Department opened its new state-of-the-art Police Welcome Center at The Banks on Thursday morning. The Center, located at 150 Freedom Way East, gives the department a convenient location for interacting with visitors to Downtown and the Riverfront, as well as a strategic facility for coordinating police activities in those areas.

"Downtown has been growing and expanding for years as new residents, businesses, restaurants and shops move into Downtown. The officers stationed here, like all Cincinnati Police Officers, are going to be ambassadors to those residents, workers, and guests to Downtown," Mayor Mark Mallory said.

The Police Welcome Center will be the new home of the CPD's Special Events and Downtown Services Units to coordinate the City's response for special events, as well as patrol officers, bicycle and horse units for the Central Business District. More than 40 officers will be stationed in the Center. It can serve as a fully functioning police station and videoconference with the Regional Operations Center, if necessary.

The Police Welcome Center will provide a highly visible, centralized police presence for diners and shoppers Downtown and guests coming to the Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati, which anticipates 6 million visitors annually. The City also expects 200,000 visitors over a two-week period for the World Choir Games in 2012. The center will not replace the full Visitor Center on Fountain Square but will complement the City's efforts there.

"As the Cincinnati Riverfront Park continues to develop and as more residents and restaurants come online at The Banks, this center is a piece of the puzzle of changing our routines to meet the changing realities of our city," City Manager Milton Dohoney, Jr. said.

"The City Manager and I talked about this as I was preparing to come to Cincinnati, and I was impressed with the forward thinking utilizing both the traditional policing side and the customer service side of helping people explore the city more," Police Chief James Craig said.

Dohoney also thanked The Banks developer Carter Dawson for providing the space rent-free, and Hamilton County for working with the CPD on parking in the riverfront garage for police vehicles.