Plano City Council approved $42,000 for pre-construction under a construction manager-at-risk contract on Monday, with $42 million as the maximum budget for a new Police Training Center, moving the city a major step closer to replacing a facility that has sat untouched since 1990. The new 33,000-square-foot building will take over for the current 21,904-square-foot center along 14th Street, making it about 1.5 times the size of the existing center.
According to Community Impact, the council’s Nov. 9 vote approved the contract that will fund pre-construction services, including design, reviews, planning and construction. Peter Braster, Plano’s Director of Special Projects, said $42 million represents the maximum budget for the entire project, though only $42,000 has actually been approved so far to cover the pre-construction phase.
That distinction matters because it signals the city is still early in a process that will unfold over multiple funding approvals rather than a single lump sum. The same report notes the current facility has never been renovated since it was built in 1990, a detail that underscores why Plano officials and voters decided a full rebuild, rather than a patch job, was necessary.
What the New Facility Will Include
Plans for the new center call for a markedly more expansive training footprint than what officers currently have. The building is set to include cadet classrooms, a tactical training facility, an indoor 25-lane firing range, and a gym and locker room, per the outlet’s reporting.
The facility will also feature an Emergency Vehicle Operations Course, or EVOC, classroom, along with a dedicated concrete pad for EVOC training. The plan pairs the EVOC classroom with a dedicated concrete pad for EVOC training.
How Plano Got Here
The rebuild traces back to Plano voters, who approved the project during the May 2025 bond election. That bond allocated $51 million of a larger $647 million package specifically for training-center renovations, giving the city voter-backed funding before any contracts were signed.
From there, the project moved through a design-contract approval reported for May 11, 2026, before arriving at this month’s construction manager-at-risk agreement. The pre-construction funding now approved is meant to cover design work, reviews and planning before any ground is broken.
How Plano’s Price Tag Stacks Up Regionally
Plano’s $42 million ceiling lands in a markedly different range than some comparable North Texas projects. Tarrant County commissioner Manny Ramirez had projected a planned training center to cost between $45 million and $50 million, according to the Fort Worth Report, which also noted that Fort Worth’s Bob Bolen Public Safety Complex training center, completed in 2015, ultimately cost taxpayers about $101 million.
Dallas’s training facility at UNT Dallas has drawn even larger figures and conflicting estimates. NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth reported the project was expected to cost about $227 million, while CBS Texas reported briefing documents placing the estimated cost at $275 million, nearly double the $140 million voters approved in May 2024. The dossier does not clarify whether that gap reflects a revised estimate or a change in project scope.
Smaller-scale comparisons exist too. In Temple, officials broke ground on the next phase of a $27 million Public Safety Training Center designed to modernize police and fire training, according to the Killeen Daily Herald. That facility is planned to include a 10-lane indoor shooting range, a new classroom building, a secure K-9 facility and defensive-tactics areas, giving Plano residents another regional reference point as the city moves forward with its own rebuild.
