MENLO PARK, CALIFORNIA—On Saturday, in the presence of area dignitaries, the local police department opened up a new substation in the neighborhood of Belle Haven, just a short block down the street from Facebook’s massive corporate headquarters. This is no ordinary police station. Its renovation, rent, and one officer’s salary have been substantially paid for by Facebook, to the tune of $600,000 over the next two years.

This wealthy Silicon Valley city of 32,000 people boasts a median household income of over $113,000. Kepler’s, a well-known independent bookstore, is one of the retail anchors of its downtown corridor. So far this year, the median home sales price in Menlo Park has been $1.5 million.

A major corporation funding a police department—particularly in a well-to-do city like Menlo Park—seems extremely rare in the United States, if unprecedented.

“I'm not aware of one particular company funding a police department or part of it, but I'm not surprised,” Elizabeth Joh, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, told Ars. “There are many instances of lines being blurred between private and public when it comes to policing.”

She mentioned that San Francisco, about 40 miles north, has its own commercially-funded force, the San Francisco Patrol Special Police. The organization serves alongside the San Francisco Police Department since the 19th century. FedEx maintains its own sworn police force too.

Belle Haven is a triangle of territory geographically separated by Highway 101 from the rest of the city. Although it is within Menlo Park's city limits, the feel of the neighborhood is decidedly different. Crime is higher, the homes are more modest, and there are notably more Spanish-speaking businesses and families. In 2013, the city’s most violent crimes—eight shootings—all took place in Belle Haven.

As the Bay Citizen reported in 2011, “Test scores in the Ravenswood School District, shared by Belle Haven and East Palo Alto, were in the bottom 12 percent of California districts in 2010. The Menlo Park district scored in the top 3 percent in the state.”

When Facebook moved from Palo Alto to nearby Belle Haven in 2011, the company sponsored a “Design Charrette” day where architecture students met at the Facebook campus to sketch designs for how to improve the Belle Haven area. Little seems to have substantially changed in terms of urban design since then.

Come for the arrests, stay for the Wi-Fi

Menlo Park Police Chief Robert Jonsen told Ars that the prior substation serving Belle Haven was boxy, dingy, and even had bars on its windows. This new one—a converted storefront space on the corner of a strip mall—is shiny and new.

The station has been officially dubbed a “Neighborhood Service Center” and feels much more like a Silicon Valley startup office than a traditional place where cops conduct day-to-day police work. The Center will have three officers on duty 8am until 6pm, Monday through Friday.

“[The arrangement with Facebook] is unusual, but that’s where we’re headed,” Jonsen said.

At the police’s request, Facebook did all of the interior design.

“We wanted that look and feel [like Facebook’s headquarters has]—law enforcement, we don’t design well,” he said. “It turned out amazing. This is setting the standard of private-public partnerships.”

The entry area has a large lounge-style space, with a couch and coffee table. One raised counter, adjacent to a window, has iPads, inviting visitors to browse city webpages and Facebook itself. There’s free Wi-Fi and an ATM and small office of the San Mateo Credit Union—Belle Haven’s first bank branch. Next to the front door is a large bank of mounted screens showing live surveillance cameras from around the city.

Jonsen noted that the monthly rent for the new space is $3,600 per month, substantially more than the city was spending on its old substation, which closed in January 2014. For months, plans to build a new station languished, until Facebook stepped in with its offer. Still, it seems odd that a city with an annual budget of over $42 million was not willing or able to put up the money for a new substation in the city’s poorest neighborhood until Facebook came calling.

Similarly, Mayor Ray Mueller gushed about the arrangement with Facebook. When asked why locals couldn’t simply foot the bill, he dismissed it, saying that Menlo Park taxpayers were already paying enough.

“I think there is precedent for taking money from private companies putting it to public good,” he said, comparing it to sponsored concert halls or sports stadiums, noting that the city would be on the hook for the full cost after two years.

“We had violent crime in this area,” Mueller said. “We had drive-byes. The number one priority is that when kids go to school that they have the same opportunity as kids on the other side of the freeway. Facebook came forward to us, we didn’t ask them. We’re going to save money in the long-term.”

Full force of the law

In remarks at the opening ceremony, the mayor also said that he was trying to rally public support for a new substation when John Tenanes, Facebook’s head of global real estate and security, e-mailed him out of the blue: “What kind of support do you need to make this happen?”

“This was our first start,” Tenanes told Ars after the mayor’s speech. “Right now we are engaged with Belle Haven, East Palo Alto, and Redwood City.”

When asked about the strangeness of a company like Facebook donating to a rich city like Menlo Park, Tenanes had no comment.

“We’re trying to be good neighbors,” he said.

Elizabeth Joh, the UC Davis law professor, wondered about potential conflicts of interest for Facebook employees.

“The concern in any of these arrangements is that there would be some special consideration for the sponsor's interest,” she noted.

When asked if Facebook employees—likely few, if any, of whom live in Belle Haven—would be treated differently by the Menlo Park police given the company’s financial ties to the city, Mayor Mueller brushed the notion aside.

“The law applies the same to everybody,” he said. “If a Facebook employee gets caught doing something, there will be extra attention to make sure they don’t get an extra benefit.”