Secure Storage Lockers Saves Space at East Mesa Detention Center

Not every storage solution comes with a larger, renovated space to work with. In fact, many of our most innovative solutions have come from having to fit more of something—lockers, weapon racks, or shelves—in the same footprint of space. Needless to say, that’s when the creative juices really start to flow, and the engineers at Spacesaver become what we like to call “Storage Thinkers”.

One project that needed a bit of engineering innovation was one at San Diego’s East Mesa Detention Center. San Diego County had added personnel, and therefore had to increase the number of secure storage lockers they had available in their personal locker rooms. In addition, the County also wanted to increase the width of the lockers from 12: to 18” to fit their own storage requirements. Simply put, there was a big time space constraint.

Sunday Pearl, a former sales representative from Spacesaver Intermountain, an authorized Spacesaver distributor, pondered over this before reaching a conclusion: if there were a way for the locker benches to retract into the lockers, it would cut down on the space needed in the footprint for places to sit—and the Center would still be able to get the required number of enlarged lockers in the space.

Pearl took her idea to Spacesaver, and Spacesaver responded by sending her a prototype of a FreeStyle Personal Storage Locker with a bench that could retract into the locker frame. After several tests for weight load and other improvements, the custom locker benches for the secure storage lockers, called Breadboard Benches, were installed in the East Mesa locker rooms.

Because of the retractable locker room seating, the Breadboard Bench solution reduced the depth of each locker by 12”, allowing the Center to fit the needed number of lockers into the same footprint. And, because the locker benches were able to retract when needed, the Center was also able to increase the width of their lockers to fit their storage requirements.

The secure storage lockers at the East Mesa Detention Center is just one of many available locker configurations we offer. We’ve been able to customize our FreeStyle Personal Storage Lockers to fit a variety of different needs, spaces, and markets. Our newest Case Study focuses on the complete storage solution we engineered for the Parker Police Department in Parker, Colorado.

If you’re looking for a variety of solutions for other parts of your department, including evidence storage, weapons storage, and gear bag storage, visit our Public Safety page.