Centre County is moving forward with an expansion of educational facilities at the Public Safety Training Center in Pleasant Gap, and on Tuesday the Board of Commissioners took steps to expedite financing for the project.
The project is a collaboration between the county and the Central Pennsylvania Institute of Science and Technology, combining the county’s plans for a new emergency responder training building at the center on Harrison Road and the career and technical school’s plans for a new facility for its health sciences program.
A variety of state and federal grants will cover the entirety of the $8 million project, but their timing complicates matters. Some were awarded years ago and have construction deadlines that must be met, while others are not yet in hand or will be provided as reimbursements.
To move the project forward on the necessary timeline, the commissioners authorized the county to secure a flexible loan of up to $10 million with a “draw facility” that allows for money to be taken only as needed over a period of 18 months. It will bridge the funding gap between paying for contractors and equipment and the receipt of all of the grant money.
“The problem is grants are always, ‘We want to be the payer of last resort,’” Commissioner Mark Higgins said. “By the time the three different granting organizations hash out who’s paying for what when, months have gone by. And in the meantime, contractors need to be paid, equipment needs to be purchased.”
Garrett Moore, of PFM Financial Advisors, said the 4.73% fixed rate loan from Juniata Valley Bank was one of 11 proposals received and offers “the maximum flexibility to use those [grant] funds to prepay and pay down those loans.”
While the county will not be obligated to take out the full $10 million, Higgins said the loan can also be used for other capital projects, such as courthouse and Willowbank Building renovations. It additionally has refinancing options to lower the interest rate.
If the full $10 million were to be drawn and only paid back over the 15-year term at the fixed rate, the total interest would be $6.4 million. Higgins said that is already about $1 million less previous options presented and will be far lower as the county pays back drawn funds when grant money is released.
Work on schematic designs and construction documents is currently underway, and the county anticipates the project to be completed by the end of 2027.
Commissioner Steve Dershem noted the collaboration involved and the complexity of the project, including the timing of funds, multiple grants and the efforts to work with legislators and government offices to rescope CPI’s grants for the health sciences facility so that they could be used within the new building at the training center.
“This is probably as complex of a project from so many different perspectives as I’ve ever seen,” Dershem said. “Everybody has pulled together to cobble these grant opportunities together for a project that will not only help first responders, but also train medical professionals well into the future. That’s what this is all about. And that’s why it’s worth going to all this extra work to figure out. Is it going to be simple? No. Is it going to be timeline-sensitive? Yes. Will it be worth it in the end? Absolutely.”
Both components of the new building had been in the works for years and came together after CPI’s plans for a new health sciences education facility “fell apart a couple of years ago,” Higgins said in May.
When completed, the project will provide classrooms, meeting spaces, locker rooms and showers for training fire, EMS and police personnel from throughout Centre County. As one of only two of its kind in central Pennsylvania, the Public Safety Training Center’s existing facilities are also already used by emergency responders from an 18-county area.
It also will include some of the original design for CPI’s health sciences building, with simulated doctor’s offices and operating theaters and other classrooms designed for training medical professionals, Higgins said in May.
CPI students will typically use the building during weekday business hours, while emergency responder training most often will take place on nights and weekends.
“I just think that this probably will be the heaviest used education building in the county when it’s done, because it’ll be used during the day, in the evenings, and it’ll have the dynamic that very few other facilities have in its range of capability,” Dershem said in May. “We’re very happy that we could utilize some of the funds that were allocated already to CPI and we could repurpose them for this project, because I think it’s really going to be a game changer for our community.”
