City of Pittsburgh police officers walk toward a group of protesters as they block access to Carnegie Mellon University from Forbes Avenue in Oakland on July 15, 2025. (Photo by Stephanie Strasburg/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)
Nodding to fears of a “cop city,” councilors set limits on uses at the proposed facility, on which the city plans to spend some $85 million.
“Pittsburgh’s Public Source is an independent nonprofit newsroom serving the Pittsburgh region. Sign up for our free newsletters.”
Pittsburgh City Council gave preliminary approval to award $1.8 million to plan a comprehensive public safety training facility that has sparked public concern about police militarization, city spending and racial disparities in policing.
After deferring the vote three times, council presented an amendment Wednesday to the master plan contract with development firm Henningson, Durham and Richardson [HDR]. The amendment stipulates how the 168-acre property in the Lincoln-Lemington-Belmar neighborhood can and cannot be used. Councilor Theresa Kail-Smith abstained, and all other members voted for the amendment.
The final vote is expected next week.
The master plan will establish what condition the land and its remaining infrastructure are in and if it is usable for the training facility, said Deputy Mayor Jake Pawlak. It is the first step in a project which is estimated at around $84 million.
Putting up ‘guardrails’
In July, council delayed approval of the contract for seven weeks to spend more time researching public concerns, including fears of urban warfare training and of HDR’s social media surveillance tactics through its STRATA team.
Councilor Deborah Gross said at council’s Sept. 17 meeting that the amendment “enshrines” many of the public concerns in the contract’s language — this includes eliminating a “public safety training village” from the project’s original contract with the federal General Services Administration [GSA].
The amendment states that the master plan must exclude:
- Coordination or colocation with federal law enforcement
- Training with agents of foreign militaries, intelligence services or law enforcement agencies
- Any simulated environment with the purpose of replicating urban warfare, that trains officers to navigate the city as an occupying force and encourages resident interaction that doesn’t align with the Principles of Procedural Justice or due process.
It also says the selected contractor can’t use “surveillance or utilize counter-operation measures such as monitoring of Pittsburgh residents’ online or in-person activities.”
Pawlak said that the city didn’t know about HDR’s social media surveillance product when it chose the firm, and is not opting in for that service.
The amendment states that to the “greatest extent possible” the master plan should allow for community access to pools, fitness facilities, driving tracks, firing ranges, classrooms and other facilities. The level of possible public access will be more clear once the study is done, Pawlak said.
The amendment and contracts are also available in a public-facing Google drive for residents to view, Gross said.
By May 2026, the city must present a master plan to the federal government, or it risks losing control of the land — and that’s just the first deadline, Pawlak said.
Eventually, he said, the city will need to construct something in accordance with the contract. Questions about using the land strictly for public safety purposes — as the GSA contract stipulates — remain among council and residents who voiced opposition to the project.
Pawlak expressed willingness to talk to GSA contracting experts on what the possibilities of appealing the land-use are. He said meeting the master plan deadline is the most likely way the city could return to the negotiating table with the federal government.
Several councilors voiced sympathy for resident concerns.
Councilor Khari Mosley, in whose district the land sits, shared his own experiences of gun violence and police misconduct, recalling a time when, as a 16-year-old, an officer held a gun to his head. He said he wants to be “very deliberate” in all decisions through the project’s lifespan. He hopes to “change this narrative from a cop city to a safety city.”
The project’s high price-tag remains a concern of some councilors.
The project, which is budgeted for with bond funds, is accounted for in the city’s long-term capital budget, Pawlak said, and that can be changed.
“This vote today is not committing those funds,” for the entire project, Gross said.
Department needs
The meeting was also attended by representatives from the fire, emergency medical service and police bureaus. All voiced struggles they are facing and how the training facility would benefit them.
Disaster response, including infrastructure and weather accidents, was a shared concern among all representatives and several city councilors.
EMS Chief Paul Sabol said his department needs specialized training for disaster response and rescue, including confined space training, flood response and structural collapse rescue.
Currently, EMS has classroom space at two former fire stations in Shadyside and the Strip District.
“We’ve outgrown the buildings we are at,” Sabol said.
Current fire classroom facilities on Washington Boulevard are in a flood plain, said Lee Schmidt, director of the Public Safety Department. The fire bureau is also currently renting two double-wide trailers as classroom space, Fire Chief Daryl Jones said.
Jones said the bureau’s needs have grown because firefighting has become more demanding. The department responds to disaster management and provides additional response on mass-casualty events, he said.
“We have great risk and great threats we are facing,” he said.
Sabol and Jones expressed need for vehicle and equipment storage as well.
Schmidt said the facility is an opportunity to expand the city’s social work, which now has limited classroom and training resources.
“EMS and fire will be the good majority of the square footage,” Schmidt said. “Public safety is not just police.”
Correction (9/17): Final approval of the bill is expected next week. An earlier version of this story mischaracterized the preliminary vote.
Ember Duke is an editorial intern at Pittsburgh’s Public Source. She can be reached at ember@publicsource.org.
This article first appeared on Pittsburgh’s Public Source and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
About Post Author
