Grants from the state Executive Office of Public Safety and Security and the State 911 Department covered the cost to construct the regional dispatch center in a long vacant building at the High Rock conservation area in Foxboro as well as the center’s technology. The funding comes from surcharges on phone bills.
The building, with its own tower, sits on six acres surrounded by state forest. It was built in 1960 as part of AT&T Long Lines to transmit telephone and television signals nationwide. It also aided Department of Defense communications and was built to withstand a nuclear blast. High Rock’s AT&T facility closed in 2003 and it was sold to American Tower Company which used the tower, but left the building vacant.