Crews at Round Rock’s Public Safety Training Center have started paving a high-speed driving track and pouring a new concrete pad designed for practicing car-crash extrications, marking visible progress on a $44 million expansion that voters funded three years ago. The city issued an update on the project on August 11, confirming that workers have also framed and walled the new classroom and administration additions taking shape on the 73-acre campus.
The driving track and the extrication pad are two of the most anticipated pieces of the expansion, according to Community Impact, which reported that crews began paving the track over the summer while sections of concrete for the training pad are still being poured. The additional pad will let firefighters and police officers practice extricating people from car accidents, a skill that previously required travel outside the city. Adolfson & Peterson Construction, the contractor overseeing the build, began work on the expansion in February.
A Decade-Old Plan Finally Gets Built
The driving track and expanded classroom space were actually part of the training center’s original 2013 master plan, but the city cut them before the facility opened in 2018 due to budget constraints, according to the City of Round Rock. That original 65,000-square-foot facility opened at 2801 N. Mays St. after voters approved a $29 million bond in 2013, and it already included an indoor shooting range and a five-story burn tower. Brinkley Sargent Wiginton Architects, the firm that designed that original building — including exterior panels colored to echo first responder uniforms — was retained to design the Phase 2 expansion as well…