Pittsburgh looks to extend lease for North Side public safety training facility for $2M

Pittsburgh is looking to extend a lease with the Community College of Allegheny County to continue to use a property the school owns on North Lincoln Avenue for a public safety training facility.

Legislation introduced to City Council on Tuesday would extend the lease through 2027 for a cost of just more than $2 million.

The proposal didn’t generate any discussion among council. It could appear on Wednesday’s standing committees agenda for a preliminary vote and then be ready for a final vote as early as next week.

This comes a week after City Council voted to reallocate funds meant for a new public safety training facility to a project that will convert Penn Circle into a two-way street.

City Council and Director of the Office of Management and Budget Jake Pawlak said they plan to replenish the funding for the new facility, which would be built on a 168-acre property that had housed the Veterans Affairs Pittsburgh Healthcare System in the city’s Lincoln-Lemington neighborhood.

That project was not ready to move ahead this year, but will remain a priority, officials said.

The new facility was initially estimated to cost more than $100 million. Due to rising material costs and inflation, the project is now expected to cost $1 million or more beyond original estimates, according to Pawlak.

Because the project was not ready to move forward, Council reallocated $808,000 from the 2019 budget and $192,000 from the 2020 budget to use instead for the Penn Circle two-way conversion project.

Officials have not said when work might begin on the multiyear project to build a new training facility.

Pawlak described existing city-owned public safety training facilities on Washington Boulevard as “old” and in “an active flood plain.”