Central Ohio Technical College and its partner agencies have opened a new $3.1 million police training facility in Newark, giving cadets and criminal justice students a dedicated home for hands-on instruction. The 6,500-square-foot building at 1000 Sharon Valley Road was formally opened on October 15, when Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy Executive Director James Cyphers addressed cadets at the grand opening.
The facility is the new home for the college’s officer basic training program and its criminal justice technology programs. Inside are a dedicated tactical training area, an armory, classrooms and a conference room, arranged so that instruction and scenario work can happen under one roof instead of being fitted around general-purpose classroom space.
Cadets will use the tactical area to practice scenarios such as active shooter response and building searches, overseen by James Rease, the college’s Criminal Justice Program director and academy commander. Those exercises are central to basic training, because they let recruits rehearse decisions and movements in a controlled setting before they encounter similar calls in the field.
The new building offers four times more training space than Adena Hall, where the program previously trained. At Adena Hall, classrooms sat next door to the training area and the building had no stairs, which limited the kinds of simulations instructors could run. The Sharon Valley Road site removes those constraints and allows more realistic, multi-room practice.
Rease oversees three academies a year, with between 10 and 24 cadets in each class. Some cadets pay their own way, while others are sent by the agencies that plan to hire them, including departments and agencies in Reynoldsburg, Plain City, Beverly and Columbus, along with Franklin County Metro Parks. That mix reflects how regional departments rely on the college to prepare new officers.
The program’s reach is visible in its placements. COTC President John Berry noted that the college’s partnership with the Licking County Sheriff’s Office has produced 40 graduates who joined that office over three years, and graduates have also taken positions with nearly every surrounding force, including Newark, Granville, Heath, Reynoldsburg, Cambridge and Coshocton. Criminal justice students preparing for work in areas such as probation and prisons will also train at the facility.
The building itself has a local history. The site was formerly home to JBA Architects, and the Thomas J. Evans Foundation bought it in 2020 and leased it to the college. Funding for the project came from the college, Ohio State-Newark, the state and donations, a combination that turned a former office property into a permanent training center for central Ohio law enforcement.
Photo: w_lemay, CC BY-SA