The Grand Rapids Fire Department Training Center is officially under construction after city officials broke ground at the site on Thursday 28 August.
Set to be completed in Spring 2027, the $46 million facility is planned to be 97,875-square-foot and aims to consolidate training and fire operations into a single campus.
This will include the fire department’s live fire training, maintenance shop and emergency operations center, which are all currently spread out across the city.
Grand Rapids is getting its first dedicated firefighter training facility that officials say will provide realistic, hands-on training to ensure firefighters in the region are prepared to respond to an emergency.
According to officials, this will be Grand Rapids first dedicated firefighter training facility and aims to provide realistic, hands-on training to ensure firefighters in the region are prepared to respond to an emergency.
Fire Chief Brad Brown said the new facility will expand training opportunities and create a talent pipeline, allowing Grand Rapids to create regional training partnerships.
Brown shared: “We’re looking at a regional partnership where we can train Kent County firefighters and work with Grand Rapids Community College, and potentially other local universities, to get college credit for that training.”
According to Brown, the new facility is more than a decade in the making and took a mix of local, state and federal funding.
He also shared how the facility will have training classrooms, maintenance areas and a five-story exterior burn building.
The state allocated $15 million in its 2023 budget to fund the construction of a fire training and operations center and the US Department of Commerce supplied a $1.5 million grant for the new facility.
The fire department previously conducted most of its training in leased space at the city water department building,1101 Monroe Ave.
NW, supplemented by a live fire facility on Butterworth Street. Brown said the previous set-up was inefficient because it took most of the day to go out to the Butterworth site, set up the homemade burn building and conduct the training.
With the riverfront site now slated for redevelopment, the department began searching for a new home. In 2023, the city purchased 9.37 acres at the Pannell Road location for $1.925 million.
While the new training facility is under construction, the fire department is currently renting out a former elementary school on the northeast side of the city as a temporary training space.
The Grand Rapids Fire Department Training Center is officially under construction after city officials broke ground at the site on Thursday 28 August.
