A future training facility for the Overland Park Police Department is getting closer to reality.
On Wednesday, the Overland Park City Council’s Public Safety Committee voted 6-0 to recommend approval of an agreement with Kansas City-based architecture firm Hoefer Welker, LLC, for design and engineering services.
That action sets off the early stages of the project, including identifying what needs the facility will need to serve and evaluating potential sustainability avenues.
Additionally, the city intends to develop a more accurate cost estimate for the project. Currently, there’s $20 million budgeted for it in the capital improvement plan, but Tony Rome, the city’s facilities engineer, suggested it could be more costly than that.
The future facility is expected to be located on the W. Jack Sanders Justice Center campus at 12400 Foster St.
Training facility follows 2022 upgrades
- Rome said on Wednesday that the new training facility is essentially the second phase of an expansion project completed in 2022.
- The upgrades two years ago — which were called for in a 2019 study of the Sanders Campus — added a new vehicle storage building.
- They also saw remodeling at Sanders Campus and the Myron Scafe building near Antioch Road and Santa Fe Drive near city hall.
- In all, the 2019 study identified six phases of work to modernize the full Sanders campus, including the municipal court side of it.
- “This is just another domino in the process,” Rome said. “It is a rather large domino, but it needs to be done.”
New facility will have firing range, armory
- The 2019 study also suggested that additional space would be needed for the police department to house things like a new 50-yard firing range and classroom space.
- Additionally, a training facility could be home to dedicated fitness training spaces, an armory and other things.
- Currently, officers in Overland Park do physical fitness training out of a temporary space actually intended to be a garage.
- Other training, like shooting practice, has to be completed elsewhere, either at other area department facilities or with private companies.
- The agreement with Hoefer Welker will reexamine the results from that 2019 study to ensure those findings still reflect the needs of the police department today, Rome said.
Next steps:
- The agreement with Hoefer Welker goes to the Overland Park City Council for consideration next.
- After that, the firm will spend the next few months working on the project, culminating in a firmer concept plan for the project and a basic site layout.
- According to city documents, Overland Park expects to build the training facility in 2026.
Looking back: New $20M Overland Park police training facility back on the table
