The Treasure Coast Public Safety Complex is a seven-building, 50-acre training complex on the main campus of Indian River Community College (IRCC), Fort Pierce, Fla. The first building in the complex, Vernon Smith Public Safety Education Building, is under construction and scheduled for completion this fall.
“IRCC is planning a unique educational complex combining law enforcement, fire science, emergency management and forensics in one place for training in coordinated response to all types of emergencies,” says Edwin R. Massey, the college's president.
Project highlights include new quarters for the 19th Judicial Crime Lab, featuring a simulated booking center with jail holding cells; headquarters for IRCC's Disaster Relief and Humanitarian Assistance Program; a simulated environment for re-enactments of robberies, assaults and other crimes within a “tactical village,” complete with facades of retail shops, residential features and a 360-degree digital “shoot-no-shoot” firearms training room; outdoor training fields for search-and-rescue tactical simulations, including a crashed airliner fuselage partly submerged in a 30-foot-deep lake; and an indoor tactical training facility with movable partitions that allow the facility to be configured into an office, school, retail store or apartment for tactical training exercises.
The architect is FLA/Florida Architects, Inc. (Orlando).
