Public Safety Academy to get new life with Ivy Tech

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE)  Once touted as a key component to revitalizing the area near what was once Fort Wayne's Southtown Mall on the southeast side, the Public Safety Academy will be getting new life with Ivy Tech Community College-Northeast.

At a Friday morning news conference, Mayor Tom Henry and Ivy Tech Chancellor Jerrilee K Mosier announced that the Public Service Academy would be subleased to the school for nine years after which Ivy Tech would have the rights to acquire the facility.

The Public Safety Academy is used to train emergency first responders from throughout the region.  Ivy Tech will use the facility to offer programs in Criminal Justice, Paralegal Studies, Public Safety Technology and Paramedic Science and expand it's classes to offer general studies as well.  Ivy Tech has been a partner with the Public Service Academy since 2007.  It will now be called the Public Safety Academy: Ivy Tech South Campus.

“Ivy Tech Community College–Northeast sees this as a great opportunity for the college and the City of Fort Wayne to partner together in continuing the vision of the facility,” said Chancellor Mosier. “Embedding a higher education component to the regional training mission allows us to work together in enhancing and building upon what currently exists. ”

Ivy Tech plans to add at least 20 courses that will be offered at the new campus, with each class having 15-20 students. Mosier estimated around 600 more people coming to the PSA as a result, and said that could increase over time. Currently around 1,200 Ivy Tech students already come to the PSA for some classes.

The PSA will remain the home of the Fort Wayne Police and Fire departments’ training academies. As an important benefit, the link to Ivy Tech facilitates the pursuit of associate degrees by the trainees.

The Public Safety Academy will also continue to serve as the regional facility for in-service training required of all law enforcement officers. 

Ivy Tech currently uses 15,000 square feet and pays $10 per square foot, or $150,000 in rent. The city of Fort Wayne uses 38,000 square feet and currently pays $225,000 in rent. The city also had to pay an additional $400,000 for operational costs.

Under the new agreement, the city will pay Ivy Tech $380,000 in rent and Ivy Tech will assume operational costs.

The city still has two outstanding bonds to pay for building the facility.

"The financial package, which includes different revenue streams that contributed to the debt service is still in place," Pat Roller, the Fort Wayne city controller, said.

Roller said it wasn't cost-effective to re-write the bonds over to Ivy Tech.

"We are going to pay minimal compensation to the city for use of the facility, which gives us triple net for the total operation of the facility,"

When the bonds are fulfilled in nine years, Ivy Tech will get the rights to the PSA's title.

The city said the partnership is estimated to save taxpayers around $300,000 a year, or $2.7 million over the nine-year agreement, by eliminating the additional city funds that had been needed in the past.

"Plus, the city won't be responsible for some capital improvements that the building will need as it ages," Roller said.

Watch the second video in this story to hear Roller and Mosier explain the financial agreements.

The partnership still needs city council approval, but Councilman Glynn Hines said he expects the proposal to pass unanimously.

"It relieves dollars that are earmarked for this facility and can now go elsewhere," he said.

Hines represents the 6th District, which includes the area around the PSA. He said the new partnership could create more economic development in the area as well.

"I'm very excited about this partnership. The original plan [for the PSA] was to be a jewel for the southeast side of Fort Wayne, which it has been. And, this makes it a bigger jewel. Attracting additional students, additional foot traffic, will hopefully attract new business to this site and all of the southeast."

Mayor Henry and Chancellor Mosier also see the new campus as an opportunity to make higher education more available to an area not currently being served.

"There's no other collegiate facility in the southern part of the city," Henry said. "It also opens it up to people in the southern counties who won't have to drive all the way through the city now."

Ivy Tech plans to start offering the additional courses next spring.

IPFW and Trine University also currently lease space in the PSA. Mosier said those leases will stay in place and the universities will have the option to continue to lease space in the PSA if they wish.

Signs identifying the PSA as Ivy Tech's south campus could start going up in January 2013. Citilink is also adding a bus stop at the campus, according to a city spokesperson.