Flint Breaks Ground on Regional Police and Fire Training Center

For a lot of Mid-Michigan departments, serious police and fire training still means a road trip. Officers leave the county for firearms work. Fire crews drill in vacant lots behind the station. When ten people are away at a range in Shiawassee or Lapeer, that is ten fewer bodies who can get back fast if something breaks at home.

That is the gap Flint is trying to close. The city has set a groundbreaking for September 10, 2026, at 11:30 a.m. at the corner of East Stewart Avenue and Industrial Avenue for a regional police and fire training center built around the long-shuttered Fire Station No. 4 on the north side, according to WNEM.

Mayor Sheldon Neeley, Fire Chief Theron Wiggins, Police Chief Terence Green, and Chief of Staff Ed Taylor are expected at the ceremony. City messaging is plain: give law enforcement and fire agencies a place to train together, share expertise, and tighten how they work the same incidents.

What the campus is supposed to put on the ground

This is not a ribbon-cutting for a finished academy. It is the turn from site work into vertical build on a project Flint has been stacking in phases. Earlier reporting from WNEM in January 2026 and MidMichigan Now laid out the intended footprint:

• A multi-story burn tower (described as shipping containers stacked into a three-story prop) so fire companies can put ladders and trucks on real elevation work instead of improvising in empty lots.
• An indoor firearms facility sized for higher-powered weapons, with sound containment so the neighborhood is not living next to an open range.
• Classrooms and meeting space for shared briefings, joint drills, and EMS-inclusive first-responder work.
• City ownership and maintenance, with outside departments able to pay to use the site.

ABC12 reported earlier land assembly from Genesee County Land Bank lots and blight-clearance work around Industrial and Stewart. Chief Green has said Flint officers currently travel to Shiawassee County for firearms exercises; bringing that capability inside the city cuts travel time and keeps more of the roster closer to the call load.

Why training staff outside Flint should care

Flint has already collected letters of support from agencies across the region, including Tuscola County, the Genesee County Sheriff’s Office, Clayton Township PD, Mount Morris Township, Mount Morris City, and ATF, Taylor told WNEM in January. If the campus opens on the early-2028 target city leaders have been using, it becomes another Mid-Michigan option on the calendar for joint police-fire work, not only a Flint-internal fix.

For now, the actionable date is simple. September 10, 2026, 11:30 a.m., East Stewart and Industrial. The dirt turns. The training product still has to be built.

Sources: WNEM, Sept. 2026 groundbreaking notice; WNEM, Jan. 14, 2026; MidMichigan Now, Jan. 19, 2026; ABC12 / WJRT land-clearing report.