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Crest Hill — Lockport Township Fire Protection District’s plans for a new training facility in Crest Hill are progressing and will soon come before the city’s Planning Commission for further approval.
According to fire district chief John O’Connor, a Sept. 9 workshop with the Crest Hill City Council and staff led to a “straw-vote” granting preliminary approval to “move forward with the training facility including the public safety shooting range,” an element of the plan which was met with public scrutiny earlier this year.
The 5-3 vote in favor of the plan means the proposal will need to make a final presentation before the Planning Commission before it can receive final, official approval from the City Council.
Those meetings are yet to be scheduled, as the fire protection district will need to compile additional information for the board, according to O’Connor.
“The process is far from over,” O’Connor told the Herald-News. “If everything goes smoothly, bids will go out towards the end of 2024, and we would anticipate breaking ground in spring of 2025.”
If approved the new facility would be located next to the Stateville Correctional Center on Division Street on a currently vacant 13-acre parcel of land.
According to the proposal introduced in January, the finished site would include a four-story structure made of repurposed shipping containers which would be used to simulate multiple emergency situations.
The center also will include areas for live fire training, hazmat and car crash simulations, K-9 search training, and a pond for water rescue drills, as well as the aforementioned gun range.
The range would be used for training the fire district’s armed arson investigators as well as police from Lockport and neighboring communities, O’Connor said.
Full, updated plans for the facility will be made available to the public prior to the final meetings with the city of Crest Hill.
The Lockport Township Fire Protection District serves a 46-square-mile region that includes all or portions of the cities of Lockport, Crest Hill and Romeoville. It has six stations, two in each of the three communities it serves.