West Palm Beach lays out phased plan and $45.5 million gap for new public safety training campus

City staff on March 23 presented a phased master plan for a West Palm Beach public safety training campus that would include classrooms, logistics buildings for police and fire, a 24‑lane indoor firearms range, two training towers, a burn building, a driving course, a dive/rescue pool and space that could double as a backup emergency operations center.

"This goes all the way back to 2008 when the operational need was identified," Kevin Volbrecht, the city's director of engineering services, told the mayor and commission. Volbrecht noted the city has identified roughly $29.8 million in funding so far from voter-approved sales surtax allocations and other sources but said the construction-only rough order of magnitude sits near $60.3 million.

Christine Perdomo, the city's senior project engineer and the project manager for the effort, said a Jacobs Engineering feasibility study and a 2024 designer selection process led to contracting with WJA to produce a master plan and schematic designs. Perdomo described the preferred site in District 4 north of Robock Road and east of the Turnpike, saying the overall parcel is about 162.9 acres, with a roughly 33.04‑acre footprint proposed for the training facility.

Perdomo outlined near-term priorities for the campus: the driving course, a technical rescue team/HAZMAT training area, and logistics buildings (storage and specialty-vehicle space). She said staff currently have funding to start design and construction of those near-term components, and that later phases—indoor range, multipurpose building, training towers, burn building, garage and pool—could be completed through about 2035 depending on funding and reprioritization.

"Because of the scope and the cost of the full training facility, this project is planned to be constructed in phases," Perdomo said, noting the schedule assumes roughly one year for design and one year for construction per component.

Assistant City Administrator Armando Fahn told commissioners both police and fire have been at the table throughout planning, and that the driving course could also serve public-works and sanitation departments for vehicle-maneuver training. Commissioners pressed staff on whether the backup EOC would be built to Florida building-code wind and storm standards; staff said it would meet required code for such facilities.

Staff acknowledged a substantial funding gap and said they were pursuing state and federal grants and potential partnerships with nearby jurisdictions to help close it. The commission did not take a formal vote on the project during the work session; staff said design work for initial components is expected to continue, with target design/construction windows for early phases around 2028–2029.

The master-plan work traces back to a 2019 Jacobs site study (contract 14918Dot017) and to a prior commission allocation of $7.1 million toward the facility; staff said additional sales-surtax receipts increased the city's allocation in the current fiscal year by about $18.2 million, bringing identified funding to roughly $29.8 million overall.

The commission took no final funding action at the meeting. Staff said they will continue schematic design and pursue grants and partnerships; if funding accelerates, later phases could be combined or advanced.