Four Years After Construction Was Started, New School Of Justice Building Nears Completion

A multimillion dollar project that will provide the School of Justice a state-of-the-art facility and has taken more than four years to build is eking toward the finish line. 

According to Evelyn Rodriguez, the senior director of campus administration, the project, which launched in 2019, is estimated to be completed by January; staff is expected to move in by February.

Twice the building’s opening has been delayed, first in the fall of 2022 and most recently this semester. 

“They have been working around the clock trying to get this place done,” said Rodriguez, who has overseen the project for the College for the past year. “We feel for the School of Justice as the School of Justice program increases in numbers and there’s a need for things.”

The biggest hurdle the facility has faced is the COVID-19 pandemic. Supply and labor shortages made it difficult to continue construction.

“There were a lot of businesses that stopped producing items,” Rodriguez said.

Originally, the budget for the facility was $35,238,932 but inflation and rising material costs changed that.

“As things progress, things cost more money,” Rodriguez said. “So we’ve had to come back to the table and increase that just to finish the building.”

In an interview with The Reporter on Oct. 6, Rodriguez said she would provide the new figures, but has yet to give that information to the paper. 

Upon completion, the two-story, 79,954 square-foot facility, which sits on the northeast side of the campus, will feature a 2,500 square-foot mock courtroom, a rappelling tower, an emergency operations training facility, eight classrooms, two defense tactical rooms and a training lab, which will have retractable walls and a catwalk for instructors to oversee training.  

The center of the facility will house a multi-purpose room that can accommodate between 1,400 and 1,600 people. It will be used for presentations, ceremonies and community events.  

Also moving to the site will be the College’s Office of Emergency Management, which is currently located at Kendall Campus, and faculty from the School of Justice, who are currently in building 8. 

The project aims to expand the educational resources offered at the College and accommodate for the high-demand for law enforcement officers.

“I’m excited about the new building,” said Shawnee Fross, the program manager for firearms and defensive tactics at the police academy. “It looks beautiful; it’s gonna be great.”

The land where the facility is being built has a unique history. During World War II, it served as an airplane hangar and later as a naval air station for the Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport. 

When the College acquired the land in the 1960s, the building was transformed into a gymnasium for the athletics department, which hosted basketball games, gymnastics events and judo matches for MDC and high schools. 

But after athletics was relocated to Kendall Campus in the mid-90s, the gym has been mostly dormant for nearly 30 years.  

Richard “Rick” Clements, the former City of Miami Beach police chief who is slated to start as the director of the School of Justice on Oct. 23, believes the facility will provide the best training for law enforcement officers of the future. 

“Everything that’s going into the building is at the forefront of what [are] the best tools or technology,” said Clements, who has served as a training advisor for the School of Justice for 26 years. “I think it’s going to represent the school very well with what we want to do for community outreach, not just law enforcement.” 

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