Minneapolis weighs $38M joint police–fire training center

Minneapolis City Council is debating a $38 million proposal to build a consolidated police and first‑responder training center on a 4.7‑acre site near a school bus lot on West 60th Street in the Windom neighborhood, with the city planning to ask the state to pay half. A staff briefing says MPD training is now scattered in aging facilities, including the Hamilton Special Operations Center, where the city has poured more than $20 million since 2006 into a building that still lacks adequate outdoor and vehicle‑training space and is crammed with units from violent‑crime investigators to the Health and Wellness program, which has seen surging demand after the Annunciation shooting and Operation Metro Surge. Fire and EMS training is similarly fragmented, with all EMS instruction, the EMS Pathways Academy and fire cadet training jammed into the basement of active Station 21, a space officials say was never designed for high‑volume, multi‑disciplinary simulations. Council Member Soren Stevenson told FOX 9 that while better training space is needed, he questions whether this is a top priority given what he calls the city’s "dire" fiscal situation. If the project advances, officials hope to break ground next year and occupy the center by 2030, locking in a long‑term capital commitment and reshaping how Minneapolis trains its cops and firefighters.