Item 10B (2)City of Southlake Department of Public Safety
Training Tower Site Assessment & Analysis
Prepared for the Mayor & City
Council
July, 2010
Background
The registered voters of the City of Southlake passed a ½ cent sales tax for the
purposes of funding a crime control and prevention district in 1996. The
collection of the tax began in 1997 and was originally authorized for five years.
Prior to the end of the District’s term the voters renewed the District for an
additional fifteen years allowing the tax to be collect until 2017.
The main focus of the Crime Control and Prevention District (CCPD) is the
purchasing of land and construction of facilities to meet the public safety needs of
the City of Southlake. To date the District has purchased land and constructed
the DPS West Facility at 2100 W. Southlake Blvd., purchased additional land and
funded the construction of a new DPS Headquarters building at 600 State St.,
and purchased land and begun the design of the DPS North Facility located on
the northeast corner of East Dove Rd. and White Chapel Blvd.
The DPS North facility will contain a fire station, training rooms, an auditorium,
training tower and indoor gun range to facilitate the training needs of the
employees of the Southlake Department of Public Safety. Having a single
location for training of public safety employees will ensure higher quality, more
consistent training opportunities while reducing travel time and overtime required
when training is conducted outside the City of Southlake. The construction of
this facility is consistent with the strategy of both the CCPD and the Southlake
City Council.
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Population Data:
The City of Southlake has experienced tremendous growth over the past twenty
years. While current projections show the growth slowing we anticipate steady
rises in population over the next 15 years. The North Central Texas Council of
Governments (NCTCOG) provides population data and estimates for the DFW
Metroplex. City staff uses their projections and the analysis of the master plan
for land use to fine tune these projections.
The total population of the City of Southlake in 2000 was recorded by the United
States Census Bureau at 21,519. The January 1, 2010 estimated population as
provided by the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG) is
26,900; a population increase of 25%.
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Population estimates from the NCTCOG for the City of Southlake in the years
2015, 2020, and 2030 are listed below.
2015 2020 2030
28,787 29,636 31,433
With the increase in residential population and the continued growth in
commercial and retail development the number of police officers and firefighters
required to protect and serve the City will also increase.
Projected DPS Staffing:
There are many variables beyond just population which ultimately determine the
required number of full-time firefighters and police officers. For police officers the
ratio of full time officers per 1,000 residential population, is a model that does
serve as a good tool to project future officer needs. Currently Southlake Police
has 54 sworn officers or 2.0 officers per 1,000 residential population. This is
slightly higher than the 1.8 officers typical of a community our size. The main
reason for the higher number is number of square miles in our City and
population density compared to the number of miles required to effectively patrol
and respond to emergency calls in the City.
Assuming our staffing ratio remains constant at 2.0 officers per 1,000 residents
you could expect the number of sworn officers to increase to 63 by the year
2030.
The required staffing for fire personnel is driven differently from police officers.
Firefighters respond from fixed facilities and have minimum staffing requirements
to achieve critical tasks during emergency operations. The key to achieving
reliable response times is in proper station placement and staffing levels of
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apparatus. In Southlake we currently staff fire personnel on a 24/48 staffing
model which means fire shift personnel work 24 hours on and 48 hours off. This
allows us to staff Fire Services with shift shifts as opposed to the typical
requirement of four shifts for twenty-four hour coverage.
Current fire shift staffing is fifteen (15) firefighters per shift which allows staffing of
two (2) engines, two (2) ambulances, and (1) truck company. If more than two
fire personnel are off on a given day the truck company is removed from service
due to minimum staffing requirements of three (3) personnel on engine and truck
companies. At completion of the North Facility another engine company will be
required; minimum daily staffing of Fire Services will be sixteen (16) personnel,
with ideal staffing conditions being twenty-one (21).
Current Training Tower Use:
The Southlake Department of Public Safety currently utilizes Tarrant County
College (TCC) Northwest Campus for annual training tower evolutions. Due to
the travel involved, Police Services does not conduct multi-story evolutions
during firearms training. The current rate for utilizing the TCC training tower is
$1,000 per day. Currently we budget $4,220 per year for rental use of the TCC
training tower which allows for an annual live fire evolutions for all fire personnel.
Ideally we would utilize the training tower at TCC for quarterly evolutions and
other training opportunities, but the impact on our training budget and the amount
of time our personnel would be unavailable to respond to emergencies in the City
would be to the extent that our ability to maintain credible response times would
be jeopardized. Since this facility requires personnel and equipment to travel
outside the City, when conducting this training, our ability to respond to
emergencies in Southlake is greatly reduced. The current use of this facility
requires scheduling months in advance and issues such as unpredictable
weather poses some difficulty as make-up times must be scheduled to ensure all
personnel receive the required training.
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Travel Time:
An important consideration for the construction of the training tower in Southlake
is the travel time savings that will be realized by not utilizing the tower at Tarrant
County College for high rise training scenarios. The drive time to this location is
typically 45 minutes or more each way and takes half of our effective response
force out of the community for several hours each time we train. The distance of
TCC also limits the number of times fire personnel conduct high rise evolutions.
They also do not conduct many other critical training scenarios due to the travel
time and distance to TCC; including, high angle rescue, confined space rescue,
ladder operations, ventilation, rapid intervention training, and apparatus
placement. Police personnel currently do not use the training tower as they are
spending an equal amount of time traveling to firearms ranges to train. Having all
training elements on a single site will allow police personnel to begin
incorporating multi-level scenarios into their Simunition® training scenarios.
Equipment:
When traveling to TCC, fire personnel must use front-line equipment which
means half of the fire equipment is also located several miles from our
community. This increases response times to emergencies as we must rely on
out of district response or neighboring communities to handle our basic call
volume while our personnel are training at TCC. The current expected response
times for fire and EMS calls at the 90% are 7:25 for the east district, 8:55 for the
west, and 10:17 for the north. When out of district responses are required during
an emergency the response time increases 5:00. If a mutual aid response is
required from a neighboring community you can expect a 10:00 increase in
response times. If overtime were used to cover a station while we trained an
increase of $18,911 per year would be required in the overtime budget. A local
training tower would allow us to locate a reserve piece of apparatus at the
training site to conduct drills. This means that front-line equipment and personnel
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will be available for immediate response to emergency calls in the City while
training drills are conducted. The construction of a training tower will also ensure
that newly hired fire personnel are able to display full proficiency of all required
skills prior to being released from training. Currently no high rise proficiency is
demonstrated prior to being released from field training.
Overview of Multi-Story Training Towers:
A modern training tower is constructed to allow multiple scenarios to be
conducted on several floors. Typically the rooms have movable walls to allow
multiple configurations for different training drills. The fire and smoke are both
computer controlled to ensure maximum heat levels are not exceeded. Fire is
natural gas or propane to ensure a clean, environmentally friendly burn while the
smoke generated is no toxic and dissipates quickly. The smoke generators are
the same “smoke” machines used in theatres and haunted houses and are
geared toward reducing visibility to make the training scenarios more lifelike.
There is no danger to training participants or neighbors as the smoke is
completely non-toxic.
Tower Maintenance:
Training towers are constructed to require minimal maintenance while having a
typical usable life of 25 years or longer. Assuming we allow other agencies to
utilize the tower on a limited basis we would expect operational training scenarios
to occur at the site about 200 days per year. At this usage the main maintenance
requirement is a weekly visual inspection of the temperature sensors and a
monthly check of wall panels to ensure there are no penetrations through the
membrane. Maintenance costs could be completely recouped by leasing the
training tower to neighboring agencies to meet their training needs.
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Locally the cities of North Richland Hills, Garland, Arlington, and Grand Prairie
have training towers utilizing a LP/natural gas burn system. Lewisville has a
tower which burns class A materials. The agencies using a LP/natural gas
system estimate annual maintenance and upkeep costs of their towers to be
$10,500.
Regionalized Tower Use:
Several of our partner agencies with the Northeast Fire Department Association
(NEFDA) have indicated an interest in utilizing a training tower if it were built as
part of our DPS North project. The cities of Keller, Trophy Club, Grapevine,
Colleyville, Roanoke, and Westlake are the most interested as they would
experience considerable travel time benefits compared with traveling to TCC.
There are two models which received the most positive feedback for training
tower use by other agencies: an hourly or daily use fee. Depending on the
agency size utilizing the tower they may select a daily or hourly rate. For
example, Grapevine Fire Department would typically have 2-3 apparatus at the
training facility rotating over several days to ensure they are able to put all
personnel through evolutions while Trophy Club or Roanoke would only need
about 3 hours to conduct the training with their single engine companies.
Daily Use: Available Days Cost per Day Annual Revenue
150 $750 $112,500
Hourly: Available Hours Cost per Hour Annual Revenue
1200
$100 $120,000
It is clear that utilizing a regional concept with the agencies that have expressed
an interest in our training tower will offset any operational or maintenance costs
associated with opening this facility. It is our recommendation that we utilize this
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potential revenue stream to offset costs that otherwise would be borne by our
taxpayers.
Advantages of Constructing a Training Tower:
Discontinued use of the TCC Training facility – Savings $4,000 per year.
Improved operational proficiency of fire and police personnel at multi-story
emergency scenes.
Front-line emergency equipment remains immediately available for
emergency calls.
No travel time out of the City for training tower use
Allows practice scenarios and shooter improvement programs for police
personnel.
Personnel remain in city and are available for immediate emergency
response.
Ability to host specialized training at no cost to our agency.
Revenue enhancement of up to $120,000 from renting facility to other
agencies.
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Site One
Corner of E. Dove and N. White Chapel
View looking North from E. Dove Road
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Tower Site Options:
Site One
Location: E. Dove @ White Chapel
Size: 10.6 acres
Pros: Good access
Good topography
City owned since 1999
CCPD can be used
Site synergies
Site signage notification
Cons: Resident opposition
This is the preferred site for the location
of the training tower. The City has owned
the property since 1999 and installed signage informing residents about our
intent to construct a DPS facility at this location. The topography is flat in the
location of the training tower and combined police and fire use will allow Crime
Control funds to be utilized for construction alleviating the burden from the
general fund. This location also ensures the training synergies are achieved by
having all DPS training conducted in a single location. The City also realizes
savings by not purchasing additional land, paying for additional site work, and
construction additional classroom, storage, and restroom facilities which would
be required if located at a separate location. The total estimated cost of
constructing the training tower at this location is $1.6 million.
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Site Two
South end of Bank Street
View looking south from Bank Street
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Site Two
Location: Bank Street
Size: 6.2 Acres
TAD Value: $656,222
Mkt. Value: $1,890,504
Pros: Access
Industrial Land Use
Topography
Size
No Residential
Cons: No CCPD Funds
Not Listed for Sale
Unknown Environmental
Flight Path
This is the second choice for locating the
training tower. It has excellent topography
and is located in an industrial area of town with no residential adjacency. The site
is large enough to meet all the needs of our agency in terms of uses at a training
tower. Due to the location we will lose the training synergies present at site one
and the minimal police usage of this location makes utilizing Crime Control funds
unlikely. This alternative site increases the project cost an estimated $2.54
million; a cost which will be borne by the General Fund. This site is currently
owned and used by Darr Equipment for heavy machinery storage so it is
unknown what an environmental study of the location will reveal. Also, the
proximity to the DFW Airport flight path might cause some height restrictions for
aerial operations. The total estimated cost of constructing the training tower at
this location is $4.14 million.
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Site Three
Off Dragon Stadium Parking Lot
View looking west from Dragon Stadium
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Site Three
Location: S. Kimball @ Crooked
Size: 2.85 Acres
TAD Value: $352,500
Mkt. Value: $869,022
Pros: Topography
Cost
Access
Industrial land use
CISD adjacent
Cons: CCPD funds?
Too small alone
Residential adjacent
Not listed for sale
This site provides the opportunity to
partner with CISD by making
improvements to the parking lot of Dragon Stadium which could then be a shared
use for parking during events at the stadium and apparatus staging and driving
when using the training facility. There will be additional costs associated with
removing existing structures on the site, but the relatively flat topography reduces
site work costs. The site is zoned industrial, but there are homes on Crooked
Lane as close as 315’ from the center of the site which could cause resident
concern since we have not advertised any intent on constructing this type of
facility at this location. Also, if an agreement cannot be reached with CISD
regarding the shared use the site would be too small for the use. It is estimated
that this alternative site would increase the project cost by $1.52 million dollars; a
cost which would be borne by the General Fund. The total estimated cost of
constructing the training tower at this location is $3.12 million.
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Site Four
Corner of S. Kimball and Crooked
View looking east from S. Kimball Avenue
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Site Four
Location: S. Kimball @ Crooked
Size: 14.07 Acres
TAD Value: $1,176,747
Mkt. Value: $4,290,224
Pros: Access
Industrial Land Use
Currently for Sale
Cons: Heavy Tree Coverage
Extensive Site Work
Creek on Property
Residential Adjacent
CCPD Funds?
This site also provides the opportunity
for partnering with CISD to improve the
parking lot of Dragon Stadium for the
shared uses described with site three. The site is much larger than is required for
the training tower, especially if a shared use with CISD is explored. This site is
currently for sale, but is not listed all or part so it appears the owner is interested
in selling the entire site and not just a portion. The areas adjacent to the stadium
parking lot are heavily treed and have a creek crossing the parking lot which
would require extensive site work. There is also 18’ of fall along the south side of
the property which would increase the costs associated with site work. The City
would also remove an attractive property from the tax rolls by locating the training
facility on this property. Nearby residents may be opposed to the construction of
the training tower on this site as we have not advertised any intent to construct a
DPS facility at this location. It is estimated that this alternative site would increase
the project cost by $4.94 million dollars if the owner was not willing to divide the
site; a cost which would be borne by the General Fund. The total estimated cost
of constructing the training tower at this location is $6.54 million.
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Site Five
Corner of S. Kimball and E. Continental
View looking south from E. Continental Boulevard
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Site Five
Location: S. Kimball @ Continental
Size: 4.656 Acres
TAD Value: Not Available
Mkt. Value: $1,622,522
Pros: Topography
Access
No residential
Size
Cons: CCPD funds?
Not listed for sale
Unknown environmental
Pond on property
Portions of this site are currently under
development for office/retail uses and
the highlighted area indicates portions currently available. The site is relatively
flat and would have minimal site work associated with the construction of the
training tower. The close proximity to the fuel tank farms (bottom left of picture)
does bring the question of environmental concerns which may be associated with
this property. There is also a pond located on the parcel which makes the
southern portion of the site unusable. The fact that there is no nearby residential
is a plus as opposition to the construction on this site should be minimal. It is
estimated that this alternative site would increase the project cost by $2.27
million dollars; a cost which would be borne by the General Fund. The total
estimated cost of constructing the training tower at this location is $3.87 million.
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Site Six
End of Mustang Drive
View looking north from Mustang Drive
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Site Six
Location: Hwy 26
Size: 26 Acres
TAD Value: $1,587,701
Mkt. Value: $6,795,360
Pros: Topography
Industrial land use
Cons: Access
Too large
Expensive
Not listed for sale
Residential adjacent
Unknown environmental
Heavily treed
No CCPD
This site is located along Hwy. 26 and
would require apparatus and personnel to
access the site by crossing active railroad
tracks. Personnel could have response times delayed due to trains and traffic
along Hwy. 26. The site is much larger than is required for the construction of a
training tower and is also the most expensive of any of the alternative sites
explored. The proximity to the fuel tank farms (two sides of the property) brings
the question of environmental concerns which may be associated with this
location. The site is relatively flat which minimizes site work for construction and
does lie in an industrial zoning, which is a positive. Residents immediately
adjacent to the northern border of this location may be opposed to the
construction of a DPS training tower on this site as we have not advertised any
intent to construct this type of facility at this location. It is estimated that this
alternative site would increase the project cost by $7.45 million dollars if the
owner was not willing to divide the site; a cost which would be borne by the
General Fund. The total estimated cost of constructing the training tower at this
location is $9.05 million.
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Tower Site Rankings:
Rank Location
1 DPS North Property
10.6 Acres, Market Value: City owned since 1999
Site of DPS North
Training synergies
Access
Topography
CCPD funds available for construction
Neighbors notified by signage for many years
Currently not on tax rolls
-Nearby residents
2 Bank Street Property
6.2 Acres, Market Value: $1,890,504, Value/SF Site 2: $7.00
Access
Topography
Size
Industrial land use
No residential adjacency
-CCPD funds not available for purchase or construction costs
-Removes property from tax rolls
-Not listed for sale
-Environmental issues are possible
-In DFW flight path
3 Crooked Lane Property
2.85 Acres, Market Value: $869,002, Value/SF: $7.00
Access
Good proximity to Dragon Stadium
Topography of site
Lowest cost
-CCPD funds not available for purchase or construction costs
-Topography change from stadium to site
-Removes property from tax rolls
-Too small alone
-Not listed for sale
-Nearby residential
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4 South Kimball @ Crooked Lane Property
14.07 Acres, Market Value: $4,294,224, Value/SF: $7.00
Access
Good proximity to Dragon Stadium
Currently for sale
-CCPD funds not available for purchase or construction costs
-Removes property from tax rolls
-Topography
-Too large
-Nearby residential
5 South Kimball @ Continental Property
4.656 Acres, Market Value: $1,622,522, Value/SF: $8.00
Access
Topography
Size
-CCPD funds not available for purchase or construction costs
-Removes property from tax rolls
-Pond on property
-Environmental concerns due to proximity of fuel farms
-Owner prefers to develop site
6 Hwy. 26 Property
26 Acres, Market Value: $6,795,360, Value/SF: $6.00
Topography
Industrial land use
-CCPD funds not available for purchase or construction costs
-Removes property from tax rolls
-Too large for required use
-Access from Hwy. 26, crossing active railroad, delayed response times
-Trees
-Residential adjacency
-Environmental concerns due to proximity of fuel farms
-Owner has no interest in selling the property
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Alternate Location at DPS North:
Recommendation:
The recommendation is to continue with the development of the DPS North
Training Facility as the site for the construction of the training tower. The
relocation of the training tower to a location closer to the firearms range on the
site should also be considered as it alleviates many concerns voiced by
neighbors. This recommendation is based on the findings related to the North
DPS Site being owned by the City since 1999, no impact on the General Fund for
land purchase or construction, no desirable commercial or industrial sites being
removed from the tax rolls, notice provided regarding proposed uses at site since
early 2000, and DPS employees realizing improved training synergies with this
site location.
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