Pittsburgh Police To Move Into Larger Training Center
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - Pittsburgh Police will soon have a new place to train.
Right now, it's the CCAC Arts Center, but the building on North Lincoln Avenue on the North Side, will soon be home to a police training facility.
Pittsburgh Police are planning to move from the current training center on Washington Boulevard in Highland Park.
"It's definitely an improvement. We are going to have rooms dedicated to specific functions, some for scenario training, others for computer training," Pittsburgh Police Cmdr. Jennifer Ford said.
The three-story, 32,000 square foot building is filled with classrooms that will be used for recruits.
The added space will help more classes of police recruits and ultimately lead to more police officers on city streets.
"The goal is to be at 900. The Public Safety director has been working to be able to do that, so we see 900 officers for the first time since 2003," Mayor Bill Peduto said.
It will cost the city more than $240,000 to get the facility up and running this year.
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As for the Washington Boulevard building, it won't be completely empty.
"The only thing that's going to remain on Washington Boulevard is our firearms staff and office since the range is off of Washington Boulevard. It doesn't make sense to bring the staff here," Cmdr. Ford said.
The city expects to be in this new building for at least three years before building a new, permanent facility.
"A training facility really needs to be built from the ground up. It can't be retrofitted into a building like this," Mayor Peduto said.
Police are expected to move into the new location by September.