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Tupelo Mayor Jason Shelton helps Beth Stauffer put on a hardhat at the official groundbreaking for the new police headquarters in Tupelo on Monday morning.
By Rod Guajardo
Daily Journal
TUPELO – With a ceremonial toss of some dirt Monday morning, a project nearly a decade in the making to build a new headquarters for the Tupelo Police Department took a giant leap forward.
City and community leaders braved the rain Monday to gather under a canopy on an empty Front Street lot for a groundbreaking ceremony to commemorate a project that began eight years and three city administrations ago.
The reason for the extended delay, Police Chief Bart Aguirre explained, came because of the city’s efforts to obtain property seized through a federal and state contraband cigarette investigation.
After a six-year investigation that included the FBI, the TPD and area U.S. attorney’s and the U.S. Marshal’s offices, the city received the deed for the property in 2013 that had been used in a scheme to store cigarettes in a 100,000-square-foot warehouse on the Front Street property to avoid paying taxes.
The FBI investigation, which used the code name “Operation Secondhand Smoke,” involved companies and individuals in 23 different states .
The two-story, $10 million building on Front and Franklin streets, which will be built by JBHM Architects, will bring most of the department’s employees and services under one roof for the first time in years. Construction is expected to take 18 months to two years.
rod.guajardo@journalinc.com
Twitter: @rodgjournal
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