Dallas officials estimate they need an additional $178.5 million to build a 20-acre police academy at the University of North Texas at Dallas and a 60-acre public safety complex that could be constructed near Wilmer-Hutchins High School in southeast Oak Cliff.

That’s in addition to $96.5 million already secured by the city, which would bring the total estimated price tag of the project to $275 million.

City officials are hinging their bets on covering the funding gap with nearly $50 million in private fundraising and proceeds from the sale of city-owned real estate to cover 20% of the gap. They also anticipate a potential $6 million sponsorship for the public safety complex, according to a presentation.

“I’d like to see more certainty about how we can reduce the cost of the facility or raise more money to close that gap,” council member Paul Ridley told The Dallas Morning News.

Nearly a dozen public speakers arrived at City Hall on Wednesday to voice opposition to the academy. A handful called instead for resources to be devoted to other social issues.

Council members spent a significant portion of the day behind closed doors, where they were scheduled to discuss the agreement between the city and UNTD to lease the training academy site. However, after four hours of closed session deliberations, the City Council adjourned the meeting within moments of returning at about 5:30 p.m.

“We decided to defer the remaining items for the briefing because our executive session went so long,” Ridley later said. He added that the City Council wanted to discuss the academy with fresher eyes.

City officials are expected to vote June 11 on whether to enter an agreement with the UNTD college campus to lease the site of the facility to train new recruits.

“I think we need to get each hurdle cleared before we go to the next one,” council member Paula Blackmon said.

The first hurdle is nailing down the real estate needed for the second facility. The next step is finalizing the property and the pieces that will go into it. “We just need to be very thoughtful and methodical and just clear each hurdle,” she said.

This is the second delay. City officials had planned to update council members with the academy’s progress on May 21, but the briefing was pushed back.

Another question the city will have to consider is how it prioritizes revenue from real estate sales, especially as Dallas continues to suffer billions of dollars of deferred maintenance on existing roads, buildings and neighborhoods.

Mandates outlined by the passage of Proposition U in last year’s election also hang over the city. The ballot measure required the city to maintain 4,000 officers in the force and divert half of any new revenue year over year into the uniformed pension system as well as other public safety initiatives to recruit and retain more first responders.

Council member Cara Mendelsohn said she supports the academy initiative.

“It’s the most important investment for Dallas to make,” she said. “We must be able to have a space that helps us recruit, retain, and [professionally] train our police officers. It shows we prioritize public safety and value those who take the oath to protect and serve.”

Changing plans

The News revealed in February the city quietly changed plans for the police academy, despite millions of dollars committed to the project. UNT Dallas’ campus in southern Dallas had been billed since 2021 as the training site for all future Dallas police hires.

The current police academy in Red Bird has been a pain point for years for officers. It spans 63 acres across two sites in industrial warehouses. Mold and sweat, weathered training rooms, insufficient storage and limited parking spots spurred talk about a new state-of-the-art facility.

Despite past fanfare about the UNTD space housing new recruits, documents obtained by The News showed the city decided to move the academy to an undetermined location. UNTD, according to the documents, would house only a training facility for officers already in service.

Since then, plans have continued to change.

The latest iteration harkens back to the original idea of UNTD housing a facility for new recruits, but added a separate “public safety complex” with a driving track and shooting range. Officials have said they’d begin a feasibility study this year to determine the best site for it.

Of five locations reviewed by the city, including Hensley Field and Cadillac Heights, officials appear to be leaning toward the Wilmer-Hutchins High School area, noting it in Wednesday’s presentation as the site that “meets most of the criteria.”

Similar facilities have carried budgets between $180 million to $1.5 billion, the presentation noted. Three facilities the city reviewed had average budgets of $330 million.

Opposition during public comment

Tamera Lanay, a district two resident, highlighted the uncertainties in Wednesday’s briefing. The city is yet to finalize the project’s location for the complex, which also includes a simulated tactical village.

The briefing, Lanay said, also does not acknowledge that Dallas’ violent crime has seen a decline in the last four years. The city’s focus on the new facility comes amid deep uncertainty in the job market and withdrawal of rental assistance through potential U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development cuts.

“When you look at the city budget, there’s a stark difference in public safety funding compared to social services,” Lanay said. “In fact, I got no help from the city of Dallas for rental assistance and instead relied on mutual aid from my community.”

People resort to crime when they don’t have the wages and job needed to pay bills, afford mental health and put food on the table for their families, she said.

“This new facility is not a crime deterrent,” she said. “To make us feel safer in our city, investing in our health, job stability, food security and housing security is a true crime deterrent. We know all of you are going to proceed forward with this facility, but you will see this poor investment will have dire results.”

Lindsay Linderman, a law student at the UNTD, said the new project and “a militarized police force” would not prevent crime. She suggested more resources for the community in education, housing and food security.

The current policing structure and constitutional language, Linderman said, punishes rather than protects residents, and does not match the expectations of what public safety entails.

“I wonder why proposition F, which allocated millions of taxpayer dollars to this facility, was labeled as public safety facilities,” she said. “I believe that Prop F was intentionally confusing, misleading and vague by lumping together this academy with necessary repairs to fire stations in our area.”