Las Vegas police ready for move into new training center
Las Vegas police are moving into the administrative offices of a new 60,000-square-foot Reality Based Training Center in the northeast valley next week.
Tom Kovach, executive director of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Foundation, said Monday completion of the single-story administrative building is part of a yearslong construction project to build the training center at 7370 E. Carey Road.
The training center is expected to help first responders better prepare for complex public safety threats such as acts of terrorism or a mass shooter like the the one who killed 60 people at Route 91 Harvest festival shooting on Oct. 1, 2017.
“It will take a couple of weeks to move in, and they will be up and running in March,” Kovach said. “It is amazing. We’ve been working on this for a good three-plus years to get to this point, and to have accomplished this during a pandemic and a shutdown is a real testament to our board of directors and our donors.”
The new building will hold administrative offices, classrooms, and simulators for training of police, firefighters and other first responders. An adjacent, larger indoor tactical training village remains under construction, with the roof of the village going on later this week. The administrative building and the shell of the village cost $25 million combined, all of which has been paid for with private donations.
“The structural shell of (the village) is on track to be done probably in April,” Kovach said.
Plans call for a dramatic expansion of the training facility in the coming years with the help of public money. A request to the federal government to help pay for $3 million in technology is pending.
Officials have also requested tens of millions of dollars from President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan that would be distributed through Las Vegas, Clark County and Nevada governments if approved.
That money would also help fund an emergency vehicle operations course. Nellis Air Force Base has set aside 200 acres of federal land off Hollywood Boulevard on the southeast perimeter of the base for the vehicle training facility. Police said that this aspect of the project will help first responders train on patrol cars and SWAT vehicles, while firefighters will practice on fire engines and ambulances, and Air Force personnel will train on Air Force vehicles.
Contact Glenn Puit by email at gpuit@reviewjournal.com. Follow @GlennatRJ on Twitter.
