A long-planned Hamilton County public safety training facility is one step closer to becoming a reality after the Carmel City Council voted 8-0 to allow some property taxes generated from a retail area along U.S. 421 to help fund it.
The council approved a request Aug. 5 from Hamilton County to use tax increment financing dollars generated in the 96th Street-U.S. 421 allocation area to be used for debt payments for the training center, set to be built at River Road and 160th Street in Noblesville, where a much smaller-scale training facility already exists. TIF captures tax revenue generated through redevelopment in a designated area to help pay for related infrastructure improvements or other permitted projects.
The county set up the allocation area, which generally falls between 96th Street, U.S. 421 and the county’s western border, in 2000, 10 years before Carmel annexed the land. An interlocal agreement put in place during the annexation requires the county to seek Carmel City Council approval when it plans to use TIF dollars from the area to cover debt (it does not need city approval to use the funds for other projects). In this case, the county plans to take out bonds to fund the design, construction and other aspects of building the training facility and will use TIF funds to pay them down.
“This TIF has happened to perform substantially better than anyone thought, particularly for just a retail corridor,” Carmel City Councilor Rich Taylor said at the meeting. “So, the excess increment available is how the county is able to fund the fire and the safety training center.”
The training center is set to include approximately 20,000 square feet of classroom space for fire and police training areas, a four-story fire training burn tower, SWAT training area, outdoor firing range and EMA training area.
Hamilton County Councilor Tim Griffin, a firefighter for the Carmel Fire Department, said he believes the facility will help save lives.
“It will revolutionize how we train,” Griffin told the city council. “It is going to change the way that we’re able to train in the new (mid-rise and high-rise) buildings that we have throughout Hamilton County.”
The facility would allow first responders from multiple jurisdictions to train together, which is not generally an option in the limited space at the existing center.
“We shouldn’t be meeting our fellow firefighters for the first time at a fire when we have fire blowing out of a window and people are trapped. We need to do training before that day comes, and this facility will provide that opportunity for us,” said Sean Sutton, CFD safety and training division chief. He was among several first responders to speak in support of the project during the public comment portion of the council meeting.
Although the training facility site is in Noblesville, it is on approximately 100 acres owned by the City of Westfield, which would donate the land for the project. The City of Noblesville has committed to waiving design and permitting fees and to connect utilities to the project at no cost, Taylor said.
Griffin said the total cost of the training center project is not yet known. The TIF area in Carmel is expected to contribute $2.7 million to the project annually until it expires in 2031. At that point, all property tax dollars generated in the area will be distributed to taxing entities at the same rate they are in areas without an active TIF area. Griffin told Current it’s not clear how remaining or recurring costs for the training center would be funded at that point but that county officials are reviewing options.
The allocation area has generated $56 million in TIF funds that have been used for road improvements, with $29 million going toward projects in the southwest part of Clay Township.
Griffin said he is confident final approvals for the project can occur quickly and that ground will be broken by the end of the year.
The city council vote came exactly nine years after the Hamilton County Council narrowly rejected a plan on Aug. 5, 2015, to spend $3 million on a first phase expansion of the training center. At the time, county councilors expressed concerns about the price of future phases of the project.
Carmel Mayor Sue Finkam was a member of the Carmel City Council in 2015, when the county council voted down the training center expansion. She expressed disappointment with the county council’s decision at the time and said she is grateful the project is moving forward now.
“It’s the right thing at the right time, and I think financed in the right way,” Finkam said.
