The City of Minneapolis is advancing plans for a proposedCommunity Safety Training & Wellness Center designed to strengthen emergency response capabilities, improve cross-department training and coordination, and support the physical and mental well-being of the public safety professionals who serve Minneapolis residents every day.
The City has signed a letter of intent to purchase the industrial property located at 146 W. 60th St. in the Windom neighborhood for approximately $6 million and will pursue the purchase this spring.
The proposed center would centralize training and wellness resources that are currently spread across multiple outdated locations. By consolidating these functions into one modern campus, the City aims to improve response readiness, ensure consistent training standards, and enhance coordination across departments during complex incidents and large-scale events.
“This center represents a strategic and responsible investment in safer response, stronger coordination, and the well-being of our first responders,” said Community Safety Commissioner Todd Barnette. “It reflects our ongoing commitment to ensuring the people who serve our community are well-trained, well-prepared, and fully supported to help our residents every day.
Meeting needs of staff
In recent years, Minneapolis has recognized the importance of modernized law enforcement and emergency response training facilities when preparing to respond to large-scale events. These events underscore the importance of supporting first responders’ physical and mental health.
Also, the City’s Community Safety departments operate across multiple locations and offer limited flexibility, making it difficult to fully support modern, cross-departmental emergency response training and employee wellness needs.
The new complex will consolidate several training and wellness functions from across the Office of Community Safety departments, relocating them from multiple outdated and inadequate spaces currently in use across the city.
State-of-the art facility
The estimated total project request is $38 million and will be covered by the City’s capital budget as well as a request for State funding.
Anticipated features for this center include, but are not limited to:
- State-of-the-art classrooms: Modern classrooms of varying size that are designed and equipped for adult learning
- Wellness and mental health support: Space and resources, like family support rooms, offices for employee support teams, among others
- Fitness
- Advanced training spaces: large-scale areas for exercises and incident management, which the City currently lacks
- Indoor shooting range: The MPD shooting range would be relocated from the 4th Precinct
Vision of a shared facility
The Community Safety Training and Wellness Center will be utilized by all Minneapolis Community Safety functions: 911, Behavioral Crisis Response (BCR), Emergency Management, Fire, Neighborhood Safety and Police. The opportunity for larger multijurisdictional partnerships also exists. While there are specific training and wellness needs that the City must address to comply with the Settlement Agreement, this is an opportunity to:
- Address significant needs in those areas across all safety departments.
- Consolidate other inadequate facilities.
- Build a state-of-the art facility to support employees and attract the best applicants
- Use a single facility to allow for cross-department training and improve coordination across the enterprise.
Additionally, using non-City facilities for these purposes tends to be logistically difficult, costly, and creates problems with consistency if locations change. With space for professional tabletop exercises and simulations, the center will support better outcomes of enhanced, coordinated incident response during crises. Having a single facility will close gaps and provide for consistent implementation of training and wellness standards across all departments.
Reform and legal requirements
In 2023 and 2024, facilities, training and wellness assessments were completed as part of the Minnesota Department of Human Rights Settlement Agreement. The agreement, approved by City Council in March 2023, requires:
- Improved training protocols, including scenario-based training
- Elevated employee support and wellness standards
- The development of a plan for providing MPD employees with the necessary facilities and support.
A key recommendation from the wellness assessment was to improve the employee wellness center, and the facilities assessment recommended the development and construction of a new training facility.
Next steps
The City is advocating for State funding support for the Community Safety Training and Wellness Center as a top-priority capital budget request this legislative session. The City administration will also be bringing a funding request and purchase agreement to the City Council for consideration this Spring.