Funding in place, security facility at ports to get built.

Nearly three years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a command and control center will be constructed to keep watch over the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles.

The 16,500-square-foot facility, set for a late 2005 groundbreaking with completion a year later on Pier F at the Long Beach port, will house that port's entire security force, as well as staffers from several other law enforcement agencies.

It will also be the central monitoring post for 52 video cameras on or near the Long Beach port and dozens more at the L.A. port.

Long Beach officials chose the location because it is next to the port's fire department and Jacobsen Pilot Service Inc., which has a contract with the port to guide all vessels coming in and out of the harbor.

The Transportation Security Administration, through a joint application by both ports, funded the $8.1 million building last year. "Right now, security is our highest priority," said Geraldine Knatz, managing director of development for the Long Beach port.

The appropriation was the largest block of federal seaport security funding the ports have received since the terrorist attacks.

Tens of millions of dollars more have been earmarked to develop the surveillance systems for the center, construct barriers around the ports, purchase port police boats, add fencing and lighting and place changeable electrical message signs in and around the port for emergency situations, such as providing evacuation routes.

Covering the waterfront

The surveillance system will initially cover the 75 miles of waterfront and some of the inland areas of both ports. But it will be expanded to monitor an increasing amount of the ports' combined 10,500 acres.

Until the center is complete, the video monitoring system will be housed in a trailer next to the Long Beach port's administration building. "You can zoom in and read a license plate of a car that is driving through the harbor district," Knatz said.

Long Beach received $5 million for its surveillance system and Los Angeles got $3 million. L.A. could get the amount it needs to complete its system when the Office of Domestic Preparedness (which has since taken over the seaport security grant program from TSA) announces its next round of funding in August.

The center will also house staffers from the L.A. port police, Long Beach police, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection.

Combining the agencies is expected to improve operations in areas such as cargo inspection, because customs officials can "deputize" port police on the spot to help them inspect containers.

"That is the importance of sharing intelligence," said Noel Cunningham, the L.A. port's director of operations and emergency management. "All of us have special expertise and knowledge of the industry."

Meanwhile, the Long Beach office of project architect Lockwood Greene is straggling to find enough parking for the facility, which is 41 spaces shy of its 100-space goal.

Planners want to consolidate the parking area with other operations on the pier, such as the Long Beach Container Terminal.

Jim Conner, project manager for the Lockwood Greene, could not be reached for comment.