AURORA, CO Adolfson & Peterson Construction (AP) participated in the grand opening of the new Aurora, Colorado, Police and Fire Safety Training Center (CAPSTC), a joint state-of-the-art training center. More than 200 people gathered for a ribbon cutting ceremony and to tour the new campus. Dedication speeches were made from Councilwoman Barb Cleland, City Manager Skip Noe, Fire Chief Garcia, Police Chief Nick Metz, and Regional A&P Vice President Tom Horsting.

This 23-acre campus project includes four separate buildings: a 43,366-square-foot education and training building with office and conference areas; a new 7,000-square-foot, five-story drill tower structure; an on-site pump house; and a 3,500-square-foot class-A burn building.

The design-build team includes architect Studiotrope and engineer Elliott, LeBoeuf & McElwain. The campus now serves as a joint-training facility for the city of Aurora's Fire and Police Departments, what Councilwoman Barb Cleland described as a "must-have" for the city. These public safety entities are now able to train and operate together to be more effective as a team on the drill field when responding to emergency scenes. In addition, the site location is next to Arapahoe County's driving track and sheriff's office for future collaborative training opportunities with other agencies.

The site will accommodate future growth plans including a 7,700-square-foot tactical/search/rescue structure; a 34,500-square-foot, five-building tactical village; and a training site that will include vehicle extrication, trench simulation, and HAZMAT training.

City Manager George "Skip" Noe spoke to the collaboration efforts, which brought project success.

"This was truly a team effort: police, fire, communications, public works, IT"¦ all the folks who were involved to put this project together in really great detail was based on all of us working together to make this project a reality," said Noe. "This is an amazing, fully integrated training facility to make our community even safer. It enables us to be at that top level of response."

Aurora Police Chief Nick Metz said, "To have a facility our firefighters and police officers can walk into every day to feel proud and supported will only make their job even better to provide service to our community."