Guilford County Sheriff Danny Rogers has been dreaming of – and working toward – the day when he and his leadership team could finally move out of the dilapidated, flood-prone and, depending on who you ask, possibly haunted Otto Zenke Building, which has served as the Sheriff’s Office headquarters for decades.
That day has arrived.
After a process that stretched well over a decade from early conception to final completion, the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office is preparing to officially open its brand-new administrative headquarters at 401 West Sycamore Street in Greensboro.
The grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled for Wednesday, January 14, 2026, at 11 a.m. – marking the culmination of a long and often slow-moving effort to modernize the administrative heart of the Sheriff’s Office.
There’s a certain irony baked into the moment: The project took so long to come to fruition that Rogers himself may get less than a year to enjoy the building he pushed so, so hard to make a reality.
The filing period for the 2026 election has already produced a crowded field of candidates who want to see a new sheriff in town – and who want to potentially become the first sheriff to truly settle in and operate the nice, new, expensive, long-awaited headquarters that Rogers spent years shepherding from idea to concrete and steel.
The new building stands on the site of the former Guilford County Law Enforcement Center, which opened in 1975. At the time, that complex housed nearly everything under the county’s criminal justice umbrella – the Detention Center, the Office of the Sheriff, the Magistrate’s Office, the Legal Process Division, and patrol district offices.
The nearby Guilford County Courthouse opened a year earlier, in 1974, anchoring what was then a modern vision for law enforcement and judicial operations in downtown Greensboro.
Construction firms Blum Construction and D.H. Griffin once described the original Law Enforcement Center as a “1,000-year building,” a nod to the strength and durability of its foundation. Rather than scrap that base entirely, the county chose to preserve the original foundation and framework, incorporating them into a fully modernized facility designed to meet today’s operational and administrative needs.
The result is a building that’s technically rooted in the past while unmistakably built for the present.
The Sheriff’s Office officially began transitioning into the new headquarters in November 2025. That move consolidated a range of administrative and support divisions under one roof including the Executive Command Staff, the Personnel and Training Division, the Legal Process Division, the Resource Management Division, the Professional Standards Division and the Sheriff’s Office legal team.
County officials say that the centralized layout is intended to improve efficiency and coordination while better serving Guilford County residents.
Despite its size and prominence, the building isn’t intended to function as a public-facing hub in the way a courthouse or detention facility does. Instead, public access is limited to the services provided by the administrative divisions housed inside.
Patrol operations and detention services remain unchanged by the move – a point the Sheriff’s Office has emphasized to avoid confusion.
The transition also marks the end of the road for the Otto Zenke Building, which has housed the Sheriff’s Office since 1998. Former Sheriff B.J. Barnes relocated administrative offices there that year, and by around 2014 the building was occupied solely by the Sheriff’s Office.
Originally the private residence of noted interior designer Otto Zenke, the structure had long been criticized as being ill-suited for modern law enforcement administration. Once fully vacated, it will be demolished.
The site will be redeveloped into approximately 12 public parking spaces along with a fenced parking lot containing 127 spaces designated for Sheriff’s Office personnel.
Planning for the new headquarters formally began in 2019 but earlier versions were being worked on way before that.
Preparation work followed in 2022, demolition of the former structure began in 2024 under D.H. Griffin, and construction was completed by Blum Construction in November 2025. The timeline reflects both the complexity of the project and the reality of large-scale county construction efforts, which often advance in fits and starts.
One huge setback was a fallout over minority hiring quotas and an ensuing dispute that killed a giant construction contract between Samet Corp and Guilford County and added millions in cost to the project.
The history of the site mirrors the history of the Sheriff’s Office itself. Former Sheriff Paul Gibson led the office when the Law Enforcement Center opened in 1975. Since then, Guilford County has been served by Sheriffs Profitt, Birch, Barnes, and now Rogers, who’s held the position since 2018.
For Rogers, the opening of the new headquarters represents one of the most tangible and lasting accomplishments of his tenure, regardless of what happens in the upcoming election.
The January 14 event will include remarks from Sheriff Rogers, a ribbon-cutting ceremony, and opportunities for media to capture exterior and interior visuals of the new facility.
The Sheriff’s Office is taking this opportunity to publicly express appreciation to Blum Construction, D.H. Griffin, all subcontractors involved with the project, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners, Guilford County Facilities Director Eric Hilton, Project Manager Ian Huffman, and GCSO Resource Management Captain W. Mecham for their roles in bringing the project to completion.
After decades of working out of buildings that were never designed for the demands of a modern sheriff’s office, Guilford County deputies and administrators finally have a headquarters built with that specific purpose in mind. Whether Sheriff Rogers is the one who ultimately gets to enjoy it the longest remains an open question – however, the building itself is now very much a reality and, even if things don’t go his way, the building will be there standing for the new top occupant.
