Cedar Park officials held a ribbon-cutting for the city's new, joint Public Safety Training Facility April 24.
A closer look
The 17,000-square-foot facility serves police, fire and emergency management personnel, featuring classrooms, offices, a simulation and training building, and a garage for emergency vehicles, according to a city news release. Additionally, the facility includes the city’s first dedicated Emergency Operations Center.
Emergency Management Coordinator John Cummins said the operations center provides a space "where all emergency services and all other city functions can come together in one room and have one voice in what's going on, make sure we're all on the same page and that the same effort is going out across the city."
Fire Chief James Mallinger said that the new facility will allow the police and fire departments to immediately follow up classroom instruction with hands-on training.
The new training center is located adjacent to the city's existing fire training tower.
Some context
Cedar Park voters approved $30 million for the Public Safety Joint Training as part of the city's 2022 bond program.
The city broke ground on the facility in Nov. 2024. At that groundbreaking, Mallinger said the department had been using a converted house as a classroom for years, according to previous reporting by Community Impact.
Notable quotes
"We want to provide the best service we can to our citizens, and [having] this type of facility is going to allow us to do that," Police Chief Mike Harmon said. "We don't take it for granted, the support that we have here in Cedar Park."
