Chamblee Police RTCC Design for a Growing City

Fountainhead Control Rooms partnered with the Chamblee Police Department to design and build a purpose built Real Time Crime Center in Chamblee, Georgia. The RTCC design transformed a former gym into a 24/7 public safety operations environment with eight custom operator consoles, integrated visualization, collaboration space and supporting technology infrastructure. The new center gives officers, analysts and command staff a shared environment for real time situational awareness and coordinated response.

The Challenge: Turning an Unused Space into a 24/7 Crime Center

When the Chamblee Police Department began planning its Real-Time Crime Center, there wasn't an existing operations center to renovate. Instead, the department had a large open space that had previously served as a gym, and a vision for how that space could better support officers, investigators, and the city's continued growth.

Like many inner-ring Atlanta suburbs, Chamblee faces big-city public safety challenges: vehicle thefts, property crime, and regional incidents that cross jurisdictional lines, without the staffing or footprint of a major metro department. The department needed a dedicated space that could give officers and analysts a shared, real-time view of what was happening across the city, and coordinate quickly with neighboring agencies when incidents crossed municipal boundaries.

The Solution: Turnkey RTCC Design for Chamblee Police

Fountainhead Control Rooms partnered with the Chamblee Police Department from the earliest stages of the project, helping transform an empty shell into a fully integrated Real-Time Crime Center designed around the department's operational needs.

Working closely with command staff and project stakeholders, FCR developed a complete plan that made full use of the available space. In addition to the RTCC itself, the design included an adjacent conference room for collaboration and briefings, a reception area, and a dedicated server room to support the technology infrastructure behind the operation.

At the heart of the RTCC is a 6x2 video wall configuration featuring two 98-inch displays, driven by a Vis|ability visualization processor that gives operators a shared view of the information needed to support daily operations. Eight custom curved L-shaped sit-stand operator consoles were designed specifically for the project and arranged into collaborative pods, allowing operators to work independently while remaining connected as a team. Each workstation was built for continuous operations, with integrated equipment storage, support for multiple displays, ergonomic sit-stand capability, and intensive-use 24/7 seating.

Because Fountainhead delivered the project as a turnkey solution, every element, from space planning and custom consoles to visualization and supporting infrastructure, was designed to function as one cohesive operational environment.

Results: A Shared Operational Picture for Patrol, Investigations, and Command

The completed RTCC gives the Chamblee Police Department a centralized environment where operators, investigators, and command staff can work from the same operational picture. Information that was once spread across multiple locations can now be viewed, discussed, and acted on from a single purpose-built workspace.

The environment supports daily monitoring and coordination while also providing space for investigative collaboration, operational briefings, training, and meetings with partner agencies. By designing the room around operator workflows rather than individual pieces of technology, the department gained a flexible operations center capable of supporting routine policing, planned events, and critical incidents alike.

Perhaps most importantly, the project demonstrates the value of long-term collaboration. Over several years, from early planning discussions through final installation and commissioning, Fountainhead worked alongside the department as the vision evolved, helping transform an underutilized space into one of the region's newest Real-Time Crime Centers.

Demolition and construction of the facility itself began in August 2025, with the completed RTCC opening in March 2026, but FCR's design work started well before construction broke ground. That early involvement, well ahead of any physical build-out, is what allows a control room to be designed around how a department actually works rather than fitted in after the fact.