CINCINNATI – After years of planning, the City of Cincinnati is breaking ground on a $13.623 million on a new fire campus that officials hope provides more efficient and central training resources for firefighters and paramedics.

On Wednesday, City Manager Sheryl Long and Fire Chief Michael Washington took part in a ceremony at the Cincinnati Fire Department’s primary fire training center at 3200 Millcreek Road in South Fairmount.

As part of this project, the city will merge the training center with its other two fire training facilities. The city has the so-called “fire college” training site on Linn and Liberty streets in West End and office space across from City Hall where they focus on administrative tasks and EMS skills.

A photo outside an existing Cincinnati fire training site on Millcreek Road. (Photo courtesy of Cincinnati Fire Department)

The new campus on Millcreek Road will include an administrative and education building and a training tower where firefighters and recruits can practice tactical skills, like putting out active burns.

“(Cincinnati Fire Department firefighters) literally run into burning buildings, putting their health and safety on the line, to save others,” Long said. “It is my responsibility to ensure those firefighters are equipped in those fast-evolving situations with the best training.”

Established in 1853, the Cincinnati Fire Department (CFD) was the first professional and fully paid fire department in the United States.

Today, CFD operates 26 fire stations throughout the city. Operations include a mixture of engine companies, ladder companies, heavy rescue units and medic units. The department also provides response coverage to 25 miles of the Ohio River’s shoreline.

Once complete in 2024, the new campus will have a high bay building, Long said. That's a massive, climate controlled structure meant to allow firefighters and recruits to train in all areas of fire and rescue throughout the year.

Firefighter recruits take part in 18 weeks before graduating from the academy. After they’re fully sworn in, they’ll continue regular training throughout their career. The department currently has 803 firefighters and 52 recruits, per city data.

“Proper training prepares CFD staff and recruits to respond in every situation,” Washington said. “This expanded campus will allow us to train in a way that ensures we get it right every time.”

Matt Alter, president of the Cincinnati Fire Fighters Union Local 48, stressed this project is “a long time in the making.” 

There’ve been calls to create a unified training campus for more than 20 years, Alter said, long before he joined the force in December 2004. He described the new training complex as the “largest investment into fire training” by the city since President Franklin Roosevelt was in the White House in the 1930s and ‘40s.

“Things are starting to come to fruition,” said Alter, who’s advocated for funding for this project since 2017. “We look forward to getting it up and running.”

Locating the training resources to one spot will save “tens of thousands of lost productivity hours," Alter believes, by making processes more efficent and having things “under one roof.”

“I just mean some of the auxiliary things you don’t even think about when you have multiple sites,” he added. “Every site has to have its own chairs, its own computers and classrooms, its own props. This is going to reduce overhead costs and be a more efficient use of taxpayer dollars.”

Southwest Ohio-based Megen Construction and MSA Design are the design-build team for the new facility. The city expects construction ito begin in fall 2023 with the campus ready for use by the end of 2024, the city said Wednesday.

Even though completion is still more than two years out, Alter is already referring to the project as “phase one.” He hopes the city will continue to add new simulators and other tools down the road as they become available.

“We look forward to working with our elected officials to get those dollars to get this thing built out in a way that’s long, long overdue,” Alter added.