Post by San Diego Business Journal

CONSTRUCTION: PROJECT INCLUDES FOUR-STORY BURN TOWER $29.2M Public Training Safety Center Opens in Otay Mesa By Ray Huard Southwestern College in September opened a $29.2 million Public Safety Training Center on its Otay Mesa campus that will be the first of its kind on a Southern California community college campus, according to school officials. The project includes a four-story burn tower that can be set ablaze to help train firefighters, a small apartment to mimic real-life situations for police training, and a virtual reality room to train police officers. The center also will be used to train paramedics and emergency medical technicians. “There’s still in all those careers more demand than supply,” said Dean Silvia Cornejo. “We’re trying to fill that gap,” Cornejo said. “We’ve developed new curriculum to be able to offer a Certified Firefighter One Academy.” Designed by Marlene Imirzian & Associates Architects based in Escondido and Phoenix, the 24,500 square-foot training center is on a nearly six-acre site that includes five buildings, and a renovated exercise track and obstacle course. The general contractor on the project is Barnhart-Reese Construction based in Rancho Bernardo. The center has “a very clear highlighted front entry design element that established the point of entry to the complex and also connects it visually to the existing campus, which is east of the new facility,” said Marlene Imirzian, principal of Marlene Imirzian & Associates. At the heart of the training center is the 44-foot tall tower that can be set on fire and used to train firefights in rappelling down the sides of buildings. “We haven’t lit it up yet. I did promise my staff I would practice rappelling. I’m not going into the live fire,” Cornejo said. “All I can think of is Universal Studios where they had a ride that simulated that movie ‘Backdraft.’ That was not for me.” Cornejo said she will try rappelling, “maybe from the second story.”https://lnkd.in/ghSthzae #design #construction #careers #training #project