North Campus Unveils State-Of-The-Art $57 Million School Of Justice Facility
Police swarmed onto North Campus’ Kennedy Drive on sleek motorcycles, thickly-muscled horses and a bulky SWAT vehicle.
The show of force wasn’t an emergency—it was part of an inauguration event on May 21 christening Miami Dade College’s new $57 million School of Justice located on the northeast side of campus.
It replaces the SOJ facility located in the 8000 building, which is more than 50 years old.
“Let this great city know and this great nation know that the finest men and women in law enforcement will come through these doors and our city will be better for it because they were trained here in this great facility,” said Medley Police Department Chaplain Jose Rodriguez at the inauguration.
The 120,000 square-foot facility, which has been in the works for a decade, features a 2,500 square-foot mock courtroom, a three-story rappelling tower, an emergency operations training center, a simulation room, eight classrooms, two tactical defense rooms and a training lab, which features retractable walls and a catwalk for instructors to oversee training.
It also features a multi-purpose room that can fit approximately 1,600 people. The center will be used for presentations, ceremonies and community gatherings; its first event was a graduation ceremony for Basic Law Enforcement Class 387—a cohort of 20 students—on May 22.
“This building is going to help build a lot of great young officers,” said 26-year-old Hillie Godbee, who graduated at the ceremony. “[Do] not take it for granted. Come in [to the building] and take it seriously because this is going to be something beautiful.”
Additionally, the facility will house the College’s Office of Emergency Management, which is currently located at Kendall Campus, and faculty from the School of Justice, who are in building 8. They will move in later this summer, according to Evelyn Rodriguez, the senior director of campus administration at North Campus.
The inauguration was attended by police chiefs and public safety leaders from Miami-Dade County’s 34 municipalities and dignitaries such as Florida State Senator Ana Maria Rodriguez and Florida State Representatives Tom Fabricio, Alex Rizo and Ashley V. Gantt.
The land on which the new SOJ building sits has a rich history.
It first served as an airplane hangar during WWII and later as a naval air station for the Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport.
After the College obtained the building in the 1960s, it became a gymnasium for the athletics department, hosting basketball games, judo matches and gymnastics events for MDC and high schools.
However, sporting activities ended at the facility after athletics was relocated to the Kendall Campus in the mid-1990s, leaving the building mostly unused for 30 years.
Planning for the new SOJ facility started in 2014 when MDC received $9 million in state funding.
The project remained stagnant until 2019 when the College provided additional money from its annual fiscal budget.
However, the project hit another stalemate when the COVID-19 pandemic struck. That caused labor and material shortages, forcing the project to be delayed three times—in the fall of 2022 and 2023 and then in January.
“As we inaugurate this new chapter in history, we reaffirm our commitment to excellence, education and training,” said North Campus President Fermin Vazquez, who started the project when he was the campus’ senior director of campus administration. “We look forward to continuing our mission of producing highly-skilled and knowledgeable professionals who will be the charge in ensuring the safety and justice of our community.”
During the inauguration, people gathered in anticipation of the ribbon cutting under the blazing Miami heat while munching on McDonald’s guava and cheese pies donated by an MDC alumnus.
The excitement culminated when College President Madeline Pumariega used a giant pair of silver-colored scissors to cut a blue ribbon, marking the opening of the facility.
“I hope that anyone who walks through the doors—whether it’s a faculty member, a cadet, a student—that they all feel we care about them, we believe in them and that we’re giving them access to the best educational experience and the best training in the nation,” Pumariega said.
Click here to subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter, The Hammerhead. For news tips, contact us at mdc.thereporter@gmail.com.
