CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Construction on the $21 million-Corpus Christi Police Department training academy is moving right along and is expected to be completed this summer.
The new facility is 34,000 square feet, over four-times the size of their current building on Corona Drive. The City bought the current police academy in 1981, a facility the City says the department has outgrown.
Senior Officer Travis Pace said packed classrooms will soon be a thing of the past.
"You think about it, a couple of academy's ago, we had an academy of 50 [cadets] jammed into a classroom it's like squeezing sardines into a can, you want to be comfortable in a learning environment," Pace said.
A rendering of the final product shows a spacious classroom with enough space to spread out and house even more police applicants.
"The possibility for the larger classroom sizes are just endless for us," Pace said.
He led 3NEWS on a tour of the construction progress on the two-story facility located at the Oso Creek Campus of Del Mar College.
It's nothing short of impressive, with plenty of space to host other law enforcement agencies for training.
"We still host them, but we have to find other locations to do them at now," Pace said. "We'll be able to host them and have them here at our facility, the possibility of enhancing our training, bringing officers from out of the state all over the world, incredible feeling to do that in house."
Walking down a long hall, construction is all around on multiple rooms like one dedicated to hands-on training.
"Learning all their hands-on skills in a controlled environment, double the size of what we currently have right now," he said.
Further down, there is a weight and exercise room.
"Combination of different types of equipment, whether strength training, cardiovascular endurance, potentially cross fit style exercises encompass a multitude of different things as well," Pace said.
There's also a focus on high-tech equipment with new simulators for firearms and driving training.
"So there's a lot we can do with this facility, have dedicated rooms for that, our simulator now is in our hands on room, so you can't run both at the same time if you are running the simulator you have to shut that down," he said.
From up above you can see the grand scale of the new facility off Yorktown Boulevard as well as the new quarter-mile running track.
"Right now we will have to take them to the Seawall to run their entrance physical exam," Pace said. "Now, we can do everything here in house without having to go from one location to another."
Another noticeable difference from the old location is parking. The new location offers a lot of it and cadets will also appreciate a much larger bathroom and shower area.
"Plus having that pride, that drive to want to come to work, to be able to do something of this magnitude, it's awesome, a long time coming, when I started my job many years ago, this is a dream I always had," he said.
A dream that is set to become a reality this summer.
"One major thing we want to say is thank you to Del Mar College for their partnership in this process, because without them it would have been more difficult," Pace said. "We also want to say thank you to the city manager and city council to get this done. The mayor, all the work together to make this happen, without them, their cooperation, their support, none of this would be possible."