'Public Safety Milestone': Officials Give 1st Look at Atlanta Training Center

By Riley Bunch

Source The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Atlanta’s public safety training center is finally built — after being the source of more than 30 hours of public comment during City Council meetings, two task forces, multiple lawsuits, $68 million in public funding, an unfinished referendum effort, the death of a protester and dozens more people facing criminal charges.

Despite years of pushback, city officials are celebrating the finishing touches on the sprawling 85-acre facility that sits in the middle of the South River Forest in unincorporated DeKalb County.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, along with a handful of other news organizations, got a first look Tuesday at the massive complex that will soon be a training home to the city’s police, firefighters and emergency dispatchers.

And with features like the country’s most state-of-the-art burn simulation building, Atlanta’s police and fire chiefs said the city’s first responders are finally getting the enhanced training that’s been needed for decades.

“Your police department needs this training center. Your fire department needs this training center,” Fire Chief Roderick Smith said. “And most importantly, the community needs this training center — we need this training center so that we can better service you.”

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The facility — which was originally slated to open by the end of the year — is still under construction. But officials expect it to be fully up and running in the first few months of 2025.

Crews are still turning dirt alongside the driving course used to practice high-speed pursuits and skid pad where officers work to control their cars on wet pavement. A barn at the property’s front entrance is preparing to house 11 horses that make up Atlanta’s mounted patrols, while classrooms in the leadership building will soon host academic training.

On one corner of the property, a “mock village” made up of a two-story house, convenience store, an apartment and a commercial-style building will be used to replicate emergency situations like armed robberies or mental health crises.

The facility’s six-story burn building, officials said, is one of only two rescue towers of its kind in the country that simulates conditions for recruits who aren’t familiar with the blazing heat and dense smoke of a life-threatening fire.

Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said Atlanta’s first responders will train under more realistic conditions while “simulating fear and anxiety and all the complexities of a 911 call.”

“This is a legacy, a public safety milestone — there are going to be lives saved,” Schierbaum said as a tour bus took a choppy ride around the center’s dirt roads. “We will never meet the family that will call 911 because their baby wasn’t breathing, but this center will have provided the training to revive that child.

“Police officers will go home at the end of their shift alive because of the training we afforded them,” he said. “Firefighters will go home at the end of their shift alive because of the training we afforded them. You cannot over train in this profession.”

But the project has faced extreme opposition since it was introduced by former Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms in 2021, as she struggled to curb the city’s spiking crime numbers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since its inception, hundreds of residents have spoken out against the facility. There have been violent clashes with police guarding the construction site, with instances of protesters hurling Molotov cocktails at officers and others chaining themselves to equipment. There has been vandalism and destruction of equipment off site as well.

But most opponents of the facility never resorted to violence. During hours of public comment and peaceful protests, some worried the law enforcement hub will lead to the militarization of Atlanta’s police, while others voiced concern that the city is causing irreversible harm to the urban forest where it’s located.

Almost every critic of the project agrees the city did a poor job at fielding public input from the beginning.

“There were those who had legitimate concerns we could learn from,” Schierbaum said Tuesday. “But there were those who just wanted to spread chaos in Atlanta.”

A council member at the time, Mayor Andre Dickens voted in favor of the lease agreement with the Atlanta Police Foundation when it passed 10-4. And, since he was elected mayor, he hasn’t wavered in his support of the project despite harsh criticism from opponents.

On Tuesday, he stood alongside his top law enforcement officials in front of the academic building and celebrated the near-finished construction.

“(You’ll) be able to see how we are enhancing and improving public safety and training in the city of Atlanta as a model to help keep people safe,” he said.

The massive training complex came with a high price tag of nearly $117 million, which has grown even in recent months due to heightened security measures.

The public’s share of funding jumped from the originally promised $30 million to $61 million due to a leaseback provision that more than doubled the originally stated cost. City and police foundation officials argue the leaseback was always part of the funding plan and that there is actually no change in cost to the public.

Then Atlanta’s Chief Operating Officer, LaChandra Burks, broke news to the city’s elected leaders that the price had jumped to $109 million and then again to $115 million. City Council recently approved another contract with Brasfield & Gorrie — the primary contractor on the project — for another $1.7 million.

The city attributes most of the ballooning cost to increased security measures at the 85-acre property, because of the high number of attacks on the site during construction. City officials have said arson against construction equipment and police vehicles has caused more than $10 million in damage.

A small, mile-long walking trail across from the horse barn is meant to be open to the public and a community building is also slated for public use — with the goal of allowing Atlantans to interact with officers who patrol their communities.

But Schierbaum said the city is still on the lookout for potential threats.

“We know that there are individuals who have publicly stated their intent to commit arson on this site, so we have to be prepared for that,” he said.

The media weren’t the only ones to get a firsthand look at the soon-to-open training center. Earlier Tuesday, top law enforcement officials — including Attorney General Chris Carr and representatives from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and Federal Bureau of Investigation — along with members of the community stakeholder group involved in the project toured the grounds.

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