The Lockport Township Fire Protection District will break ground on its new state-of-the-art training facility in Crest Hill on Monday morning, even as funding for part of the project has come into question.
LTFPD Board member John Batusich told The Herald-News the Lockport Police Department, which was expected to contribute funds for the creation of the publicly controversial gun range at the facility, backed out of the project two weeks before construction was scheduled to start.
The change in plans has been confirmed by LTFPD Chief John O’Connor, and Lockport City Administrator Ben Benson, and was reportedly due to funding limitations.
“Earlier this month, the City of Lockport informed us that they are unable to move forward with construction of the Public Safety Shooting Range,” O’Connor told The Herald-News in an email. “The plan was for the Fire District to own the property, with the Lockport Police Department constructing and operating the shooting range in a separate phase... Unfortunately, the Lockport Police Department has had to withdraw from the initiative due to funding limitations. While this is disappointing, it is beyond our control.”
Benson noted that while the city and police department had been working on the plan with the fire protection district, no formal agreements or financial commitments had been finalized.
“Discussions are still underway as to its future viability at the site,” Benson said, adding that the plans were halted due to the modifications that had been made to assuage resident concerns about noise and pollution.
“We have pushed pause for financial reasons at this point, as the estimates have ballooned from a couple hundred thousand to over $1M to build the range with newly required specifications in order to resolve community concerns,” he said.
Since the gun range was slated as “stage 4″ of the project, no official timeline had been set for its construction.
Benson said that Lockport is still pursuing potential federal and state grants which could be used to fund the project down the road, but that the funds had not yet come available.
“While City of Lockport values its partnership with the LTFPD, it must also act responsibly with its taxpayer funds and cannot proceed without a sustainable financial plan to build the range portion of the site,” said Benson.
If the project does not find funding, the Lockport Police Department will continue its current practice of training at the Illinois Department of Corrections range.
The removal of the gun range would not impact the funding for the rest of the fire district’s portion of the facility.
“The fire district will continue moving forward with construction of the training and maintenance facility,” said O’Connor. “Once completed, it will serve as an exceptional resource to strengthen Fire and EMS services in our community.”
Batusich said further discussions about the future of the gun range will be held at the Fire Board’s regular meeting on Wednesday.
The groundbreaking will take place at 10 a.m. on Monday at the future training site, located on the south side of Division Street west of Broadway Street and east of Weber Road.