The Alachua County Sheriff’s Office held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday to celebrate the grand opening of its 3rd precinct, which will serve as a substation for the sheriff’s office.
The addition comes on the heels of the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office opening another precinct in Hawthorne a little over a month ago.
Sheriff Emery A. Gainey and Deborah Butler, the president of Butler Enterprises, spoke at the opening ceremony.
“Our goal here is to be able to provide precincts so we can bring them (deputies) into the areas where the citizens are,” Gainey said. “Being able to provide services in the community closer to where they live and they can get here and meet us here.”
The precinct serves the employees of the sheriff’s office as well as the community.
“Deputies will be able to meet citizens, provide services here in the Butler Plaza precinct, write reports here, and be close to their zones,” Gainey said. “Imagine now when I have a deputy who had to leave Archer or Newberry and drive all the way to Hawthorne to drop off a piece of property; they can be out of their zones for an hour or more. Here, we will be able to get them back to work very quickly.”
Butler said she could not speak highly enough of both the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office and the Gainesville Police Department.
“We are so blessed to have the best,” Butler said. “I think we have the best sheriff’s department and police department, I think, anywhere in the world.”
Butler and her family have been invested in this space since the 1980s, and keeping it safe and secure for all of the shops and restaurants has always been a concern, she said.
Butler Enterprises will be footing the bill for this new precinct, which means this will not cost the taxpayers anything, nor will it cost the sheriff’s office anything, she said.
Stephanie Moses, assistant manager of Whole Foods Market, said she is also excited about the new addition to Butler Plaza.
“I think it has the potential to add safety,” she said. “There’s a lot of things going on in the world right now and to have that additional sheriff’s influence should be good.”
Samantha Shapiro is the selling and styling manager at Anthropologie, a store located a few hundred feet from the new precinct.
“We were OK before with the security people walking around, but having that inflated security is nice knowing it is walking distance from us,” Shapiro said.
The precinct itself consists of a few offices and a garage where the deputies can park their cars when needed. The precinct is located just around the corner from The Cheesecake Factory at 2851 SW 35th Drive.
At the event, deputies and other Alachua County Sheriff’s Office employees mingled with guests and employees from other Butler Plaza businesses.
The plan for the precinct's future looks different than what it is now.
“The ultimate goal once we are back to staff is to have this particular precinct staffed during the weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.,” said Gainey.