Overland Park is almost ready to move ahead on a new Overland Park Police Department training facility and some other major public safety investments.
In the city’s draft capital improvement plan list for 2025-28, the city has budgeted nearly $20 million for the new facility.
The police training facility will be at the Justice Center
Overland Park plans to build the new training center at police headquarters, on the W. Jack Sanders Justice Center campus located at 12400 Foster St.
Officers in the Overland Park Police Department currently do physical fitness training out of a temporary space actually intended to be a garage. Other training, like shooting practice, have to be completed elsewhere, either at other area department facilities or with private companies.
The new facility will include “training rooms and an indoor firing range,” according to the project’s page in the proposed capital improvement plan list.
Police training facility cost has gone up
City manager Lori Curtis Luther told the Overland Park City Council during a committee of the whole meeting earlier this month that design for the new police training facility is expected to start later this year.
Since the final adopted 2024-28 capital improvement plan, the training facility’s expected cost has gone up about $2.3 million because of a new engineer estimate that considers more recent construction costs.
That puts the new budgeted price tag at $19.3 million, though that figure could change during the design process.
Curtis Luther said she had some “uncertainty” about the project in the past, particularly given its cost. So, she “put a pause” on the project last year to “more fully investigate and understand the increase in costs” as well as to “understand what partnership opportunities might exist.”
Now, she said the project is ready to go forward.
“I’m now confident that what is being proposed is needed by our staff for their primary use and recommend it moving forward,” she said, adding that this will help provide officers “with the tools that they need.”
Construction should wrap up by the end of 2026, per the capital improvement plan.
Next steps:
- Wednesday night, the Overland Park Public Safety Committee will consider the police training center and other public safety projects — like a $100,000 study of Firehouse No. 42’s future — proposed for the 2025-28 capital improvement plan.
- Down the line, the full city council will approve a final draft of the list as part of the annual budget process.
- In the meantime, city council committees will review projects proposed in their focus areas over the next couple of weeks.
- To share your feedback with the city about the plan or suggest additional projects, fill out the survey here.
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