Pittsburgh officials consider $1.8M plan for 'pipe dream' public safety training facility

Pittsburgh City Council will consider spending $1.8 million on a master plan for a sprawling public safety training center that has been long delayed.

Councilman Anthony Coghill, D-Beechview, who chairs council’s public safety committee, said he doesn’t want to spend so much money on a new public safety training site he believes is a “pipe dream” that the city cannot afford.

“If we’re not for certain moving forward with the project, it doesn’t make sense to spend money on a plan,” Coghill told TribLive after the measure was introduced to city council on Tuesday.

But Jake Pawlak, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said it’s a “necessary first step in the design process for a site of this size and complexity.”

Legislation for funding of the master plan will appear on council’s standing committee agenda next week. Council could take a preliminary vote then and a final vote as soon as the following week.

For years, the city has contemplated building a training facility for its public safety personnel in the Lincoln-Lemington neighborhood, where the city acquired a 168-acre site that formerly housed the Veterans Affairs Pittsburgh Healthcare System.

The VA site closed in 2013. The city bought the property in 2020 in hopes of constructing a massive training facility for police, firefighters and EMTs.

Officials initially estimated the project would cost more than $100 million, though Pawlak by 2022 pegged the costs at “considerably more than” $120 million.

The city has moved money previously earmarked for the project to pay for other expenses, such as road paving. But the 2025 capital budget, which accounts for a six-year period through 2030, includes $86 million for the new training site.

If it earns city council’s approval, the master plan would analyze how existing buildings, roads and utilities could align with the training facility and outline additional details of how work could be carried out there, Pawlak said.

The city would hire Pittsburgh-based Henningson Durham & Richardson of Pennsylvania Architects & Engineers P.C. to conduct the master plan over the next two years.

Pawlak said the training facility would include classrooms for all public safety bureaus, an emergency vehicle training course, a burn tower for firefighters to conduct training exercises, multipurpose training and wellness spaces, an indoor firing range and a K-9 training facility.

It might also house an evidence warehouse and additional salt and winter weather equipment storage space, Pawlak said.

Cost estimates and timelines will be refined during the master planning work, Pawlak said.

Coghill, a vocal advocate for the city’s public safety personnel, was skeptical anything would come of the plans for a new training facility.

“I was under the understanding that we were no longer pursuing that currently — meaning maybe someday, but as of now, we’ve got too many other financial woes and that will cost a fortune,” he said, suggesting the total project cost could be around $200 million.

The city is facing declining revenues; an end to federal covid-19 relief money; and a legal challenge to its facility usage fee, a tax on professional athletes and performers who don’t live in Pittsburgh.

Coghill said he didn’t think the city would be able to fund the costly training center in the next few years, though he believes it would be a boost for the public safety department.

“I would love to have one big training facility,” he said. “I think it would be best for police, fire, EMS, everyone involved.”