Construction will soon begin to update Lewisville’s public safety training center after an 11-year delay.
The city council accepted a $1.2 million bid from Reeder Construction of Fort Worth last Monday to begin the project as soon as possible.
Fire Chief Tim Tittle says the project will add two large classroom spaces, a covered apparatus garage, storage areas and 15,000 square feet in parking to the facility located on Treatment Plant Road.
The facility is made up mostly of outdoor, hands-on training areas; a gun range and obstacle course for police and a controlled burn area for firefighters. Tittle says one of the biggest benefits of this expansion will allow for complete on-site training.
"Now they can sit in the class and talk about it, go right out into the training field and practice it, come in and talk about it; what we did, what did we learn, what can we do different?” Tittle said.
Tittle says it’s rare for a city department to have this complete of a facility so they often open their doors to other jurisdictions to come in and train alongside them. Tittle says the fire and police departments hope to find more opportunities to do that after the expansion.
"It's going to really be nice you know to be able, for both of our departments to be able to host a lot of stuff down there and utilize this space,” Tittle said.
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The expansion project was part of a bond that went to voters and was passed back in 2002. Most of the bond was comprised of infrastructure improvements that have been the focus until now.
Tittle says they look forward to finally starting this final phase and hope to begin construction next month.
