Centre County to pursue $10M loan for Public Safety Training Center expansion

The Centre County Commissioners authorized county staff Tuesday to pursue a flexible, multi-million dollar loan in an effort to move forward with a major expansion of the Public Safety Training Center.

Located at 391 North Harrison Road in Spring Township, the training center’s roughly $8 million expansion is a joint effort between the county and the Central Pennsylvania Institute of Science and Technology [CPI], which will merge the county’s plans for a training center expansion with CPI’s plans to build a new health sciences program building.

The project includes constructing classrooms, meeting spaces, locker rooms and showers for emergency medical service, fire and police responders throughout Centre County, along with the 18 other counties that utilize the facility. On CPI’s side of things, the project will also will include simulated doctor’s offices, operating theaters and other classrooms designed for training medical professionals.

The project’s completion is slated for the end of 2027, although some tricky grant awards have made hitting that timeline easier said than done. While the project’s cost is fully covered by several federal and state grants, some of those grants were received years ago and have construction deadlines attached to them, and others have yet to be received, or will be received as reimbursements.

To alleviate risks and keep the project moving forward in accordance with its timeline, the commissioners unanimously approved a resolution Tuesday to authorize its staff members to approve a flexible loan of up to $10 million from the Juniata Valley Bank. It comes with a 4.73% fixed interest rate for 15 years.

“We’re not going to borrow the full $10 million on day one,” Commissioner Mark Higgins said. “We’ll borrow the money as we need it, up until January of 2028. And then at that point — well, actually before that — we’ll begin paying it down. Also, it’s super flexible, so as we spend the money to contractors and other expenses, once we’re reimbursed by the grants, we can pay the balance down.”

Higgins added that the ability to pull money from the loan as needed minimized excessive borrowing and unnecessary debt accumulation, and PFM Financial Advisors Senior Financing Consultant Garrett Moore noted that the loan could also be used on the other capital projects, such as Willowbank Building renovations and upgrades to the Community Services Building.

Also included in the loan are refinancing options to lower its interest rate if or when the county deems it necessary. As County Administrator John Franek, Jr. put it, the loan aims to “bridge the gap between payment and reimbursement.”

According to Moore, the $10 million loan was one of 11 different loan options provided from four different banks — Juniata Valley, Kish, Webster and First National banks.

“There are no other erroneous conditions, for example, there’s no depository relationship requirements, there’s no yield protection,” Moore said. “It’s a very clean proposal in that they really gave us exactly what we asked for and didn’t add any wrong words or other ugly language.”

Moving forward, work is underway on some of the project’s behind-the-scenes tasks like overall design creation and construction document finalization.

When the overall project is completed, it’s expected that emergency responder trainings will occur on nights and weekends, while CPI students use the building during the weekdays, although no date was shared for when construction may start.

“This is probably as complex of a project from so many different perspectives as I’ve ever seen our local government here get involved in,” said Commissioner Steve Dershem, who’s currently in his 23rd year serving as a commissioner. “Is it going to be simple? No. Is it going to be timeline-sensitive? Yes. Will it be worth it in the end? Absolutely.”