The San Diego Police Department's Southern Division station, which serves Otay Mesa and surrounding communities, shut its doors this week after officials flagged a potential mold issue inside the building. The closure means residents can't walk in for services at that location until further notice, and there's no word yet on when the building might reopen.
According to NBC 7 San Diego, the station closed Tuesday, with officials saying the move was purely precautionary while they assessed the situation and figured out whether further action was needed. In the meantime, the closure means walk-in services will be temporarily unavailable, the station's report notes, leaving residents who might normally stop by in person to instead rely on the phone.
Southern Division staff haven't gone anywhere, though — they've simply set up shop elsewhere. Per the same account, employees are temporarily operating out of the Southeastern Division, responding to calls for service as usual, meaning patrol and response operations for the area haven't skipped a beat even as the physical station sits empty.
What Residents Should Know Right Now
For anyone who needs police help while the station is closed, the guidance is straightforward: call 911 for emergencies. For everything else, 10News reports that all non-emergency calls should be made to 619-531-2000, giving residents a direct line to reach officers even without a physical front counter to walk up to.
As for how long the closure will last, that remains an open question. Details about the assessment's completion were not immediately available, according to the same 10News report, leaving both the public and presumably station staff waiting for a clearer timeline.
Part of a Broader Pattern of Mold Trouble
This isn't the first public building in the region to run into this kind of problem. The Southern Division station is just the latest public building across San Diego County dealing with mold issues, the NBC 7 report notes, pointing to a string of recent cases in local schools. Spores were found this summer at Del Sur Elementary and Black Mountain Middle School, and Monarch School students were moved to temporary campuses in August after mold was detected there as well.
Mold-related closures at government buildings aren't unique to San Diego, either. In Chattanooga, officials closed a police department's public lobby for remediation after an issue was identified during ongoing facility assessments; professional evaluations began afterward, with the City of Chattanooga saying at the time that there was no estimated timeline for reopening. And in Austin, employees in the police department's Report Sale unit were relocated to another substation after facilities management found mold in an air-conditioning unit at headquarters, according to KXAN. Austin Police said the move was a precaution and that additional testing would determine whether further relocations were necessary, with the department's Patrol building also slated for proactive mold testing.
For now, San Diego officials haven't said whether the Southern Division station will need similar remediation work or additional testing before it can reopen. Until then, Otay Mesa residents needing in-person police services will have to look elsewhere, while calls continue to be handled out of the Southeastern Division.
