CLIVE, Iowa — A new safety feature in Clive ensures safe exchanges for child custody meetups, e-commerce trades, and other exchanges.

The Clive Police Department now has an official area in its parking lot at 8800 Hickman Road dedicated to people meeting others for various reasons. The site comes after Clive Police Chief Mark Rehberg said it was time to have a dedicated space for these transactions.

“Historically, people have come to the police department to do a lot of these types of exchanges, especially child custody exchanges,” Rehberg said. “That’s probably been the biggest reason why they’ve come by. Even at our old building that was going on, but we never had a designated area where anybody could do that.”

The space provides an area that is under surveillance 24/7 and well-lit in front of the Clive Police Department. Chief Rehberg said that people would often call to see if they could do these types of exchanges before it was a dedicated space, so the department decided to make the process easier by adding a permanent space.

The space is used heavily for child custody exchanges, but it can also be used for Facebook Marketplace meetups, concert tickets, and transactions for other goods — just to name a few.

Chief Rehberg said that there had been instances of robbery when meetups have taken place in dark parking lots and other unsafe locations. So far, he said that the system has worked well for the city of Clive.

“I can sit in my office and I can look out the window, and I’ve seen people just showing up and handing off tickets and money and making those exchanges,” Rehberg said. “It takes about seven or eight seconds. They’re in and out.”

Clive isn’t the only metro city to offer a safe exchange zone. There are currently zones located in Des Moines, West Des Moines, Johnston, Waukee, Norwalk, and Altoona. The space is free to use any time, any day.