First big private contribution, but more needed for a new Dallas Police Academy

Dallas has been planning for more than 30 years to get a new police academy built.

Thursday city leaders cheered about the first big private contribution needed for the latest academy plan.

The new building would be at the University of North Texas at Dallas campus on Camp Wisdom Road near University Hills Drive.

Some Dallas Police training already occurs at UNT Dallas at the Caruth Police Institute. The plan calls for combining the new academy with Caruth and moving all Dallas police training to the campus.

“It will certainly help recruiting. It will certainly help retention with the training we’ll be able to give continuously to our current serving officers,” Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia said.

The added police presence of a police academy would also help the far southern Dallas neighborhood, according to city leaders.

The grant Thursday was $10 million from the Communities Foundation of Texas (CFT).

“The City of Dallas is second to none when it comes to generosity and public-private cooperation,” CFT CEO Wayne White said.

The current Dallas Police Academy is housed in a group of commercial buildings first leased in 1990 as a temporary solution.

Classroom and training space is minimal. Chief Eddie Garcia called it embarrassing.

“The young men and women that we want to have a career in law enforcement are like anyone else. They’re interested in technology, they’re interested in what’s innovative and what we have not is not indicative of that.

Renderings show how the new modern police academy would look on the university campus.

There was nothing on the site of UNT Dallas 20 years ago, but several new buildings have been built there now with more on the way.

The police academy would sit along Camp Wisdom Road across from the North Central Police patrol substation, next to a school and across from a residential neighborhood that Dallas City Council Member Tennell Atkins represents.

“This community is going to be one of the safest in America with the training facility. Now who would say 20 years ago what would be today,” Atkins said.

The state has been investing in expanding the university and also promises $20 million for the police training academy that could help expand the Dallas police force.

“When we get to our goals that we want more people in an academy class, this academy will be able to accommodate that,” Garcia said.

The academy funding plan depends on $50 million from the planned May Dallas public improvement bond referendum.

Adding on today’s CFP grant and the state money the total pledge for a police academy is now $80 million.

The recent cost estimate is $140 million so that means $60 million more must still be raised from private contributions.