ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. —A $50 million statewide police training facility is in development in St. Louis County, police announced Thursday. The state-funded Gateway Regional Law Enforcement Training Center will be planned and operated by police departments in St. Louis County, Jefferson, St. Charles, and Franklin counties.

Preliminary plans for the center include an 80-acre outdoor training area, urban street replicas, virtual reality simulations and a shooting range. While the exact location has not been finalized, St. Charles County Executive Steve Ehlmann said it will likely be near Chesterfield — the most central point among the counties involved.

“The quality of police training in the region is uneven,” Ehlmann said. “This would allow all police to drill in real-world simulations and not just learn from a book. It’s the difference between a coach giving you a chalk talk and making you scrimmage.”

According to the St. Louis Business Journal, several counties budgeted for additional contributions last year. St. Charles County Police Chief Kurt Frisz said departments will cover operating costs through a fee structure based on the number of recruits.

“I feel like [it’s] a better business plan,” Frisz said. “There can be tuition paying, non-hire or self-sponsored recruits, but most of them are going to be sponsored by police departments.”

The City of St. Louis is not affiliated with the facility. Former Mayor Tishaura Jones opted not to participate, and the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department will soon fall under state control.

“This started out as a collaboration between St. Louis City and St. Louis County, but this morphed into this,” said County Police Chief Colonel Kenneth Gregory. “And we’re pleased to have it go that way. Our current academy is 35 years old. It’s outdated. We can’t get the training done that we need there and this is going to be a big asset for all of us. The new facility will offer larger classrooms, updated technology… all aiming to provide the highest level of training for law enforcement.”

The $50 million grant was awarded earlier this week by the Missouri Department of Public Safety, though planning began nearly five years ago. Bob Brinkmann, founder of Brinkmann Constructors, proposed a multi-story building design to leaders in St. Charles, but Ehlmann says the project stalled when the county couldn’t afford to contribute.

“That’s kind of where it sat for a while,” Ehlmann said. “I need to thank my friend Sam Page here, who called me about 20 months ago and said, ‘Hey, you want to work on a regional police training facility?’”

Leaders from each department are still refining the plans, but St. Louis County Councilman Mark Harder says Brinkmann’s original layout informs the discussion.

“It’s based off of other models around the country. The FBI Academy has some of these same features,” Harder said. “The idea is to try to be the police force of the next century.”

The proposed facility will include indoor and outdoor training spaces, auditoriums, observation areas, computer labs, and judgment simulator rooms.