According to a legal notice, the old Hudson County Juvenile Detention Center (HCJDC), located within the Meadowview Campus at 635 County Avenue near Dorigo Lane in Secaucus, is slated to be converted into the Hudson County Police and Fire Training Facility.
The HCJDC was built by the CGL Companies for $11.33 million in 1995, and is largely only one story tall. It contains a gymnasium, an outdoor recreation area, a courtyard, and a dining area, according to the architect’s website. The Jersey Journal reported that the facility closed in March 2015, and children who had been detained in the facility were taken to juvenile detention centers in Bergen and Union Counties.
Hudson County View reports that the new Police and Fire Training Facility is expected to open in 2018, and that Hudson County Community College will help operate it.
The County has issued a Request for Qualifications and will be seeking professional architectural and engineering design services for the project on Thursday, August 10th at 11:00am at the Purchasing Department office in Jersey City.
Hudson County does not currently have its own police and fire training facility, unlike nearby counties such as Essex County, which operates the Essex County College Public Safety Academy in Cedar Grove, and Union County, which operates the John H. Stamler Police Academy in Scotch Plains and the Union County Fire Training Academy in Linden.
In a letter to the Hudson Reporter earlier this year, Edward Flood, the former Chief of North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue, stated that “to provide the highest level of emergency response, every branch of the Hudson County public safety sector needs training, retraining, education, advanced education and the appropriate facilities to hone and enhance the response, rescue and emergency mitigation capabilities required to serve the residents of Hudson County along with the tens of thousands of people that transit through and visit.”
