Lorie Blair
Dallas City Council
The history of training Dallas police officers goes back generations. The Dallas Police Academy traces its formal roots to the Dallas Police Training School established in 1945, with recruit training in Dallas dating back even earlier. Over the decades, the location and methods of training changed as our city and Police Department grew.
In 1990, the Dallas Police Department moved its recruit training operations to 5310 Red Bird Center Drive. The facility was intended to be a temporary solution. Yet, 36 years later, Dallas police recruits are still being trained at this location.
What was supposed to be temporary became permanent without ever being designed to meet the long-term needs of a growing, modern police department.
In 2012, the City expanded training operations by leasing additional space at 5610 Red Bird Center Drive for in-service training. Even with the additional space, the facilities have continued to lack the technology, specialized training environments, equipment, and space needed for a major-city police department.
Still, inside these outdated facilities, the Dallas Police Department has continued to train first-class officers who serve our residents every day. The quality of our officers has never been limited by their commitment; however, the facilities provided to train them have not kept pace with the standards we expect them to meet.
Like too many of our aging City facilities, the current academy has reached a point where it simply cannot meet the long-term needs of the people it is intended to serve.
The 2024 Bond Program Made the Vision Possible
As the City Planning Commissioner representing District 8, appointed by then-Councilmember Tennell Atkins, I also had the opportunity to serve on the 2024 Economic Development Bond Subcommittee.
The 2024 Bond Program required difficult conversations about priorities and how Dallas should invest in its future. One of those priorities was public safety and finally addressing the long-standing need for a permanent, modern police training academy.
On May 4, 2024, Dallas voters approved the 2024 Bond Program. The $90 million Public Safety proposition included $50 million for the new Dallas Police Training Academy at the University of North Texas at Dallas.
That $50 million commitment became a critical foundation for moving this project from an idea to reality.
But the City could not do this alone.
The project has been made possible through collaboration among the City of Dallas, UNT Dallas, the State of Texas, Communities Foundation of Texas, private philanthropy, law enforcement leadership, and many others who understood that investing in the people who protect our city requires investing in how we train them.
The State committed funding to the project, Communities Foundation of Texas provided a major philanthropic investment, and additional private fundraising has helped build upon the commitment Dallas voters made through the 2024 Bond Program.
September 3, 2026 — A Promise Becomes Reality
Today, Thursday, September 3, 2026, we reached a milestone that has been more than three decades in the making.
State representatives, county representatives, the Mayor, City Manager, members of the Dallas City Council, Dallas Police and Fire leadership, UNT Dallas leadership, community partners and supporters came together on the UNT Dallas campus to officially break ground on the new Dallas Police Department Law Enforcement Training Center.
For me, this groundbreaking has special meaning because this investment is happening right here in Southern Dallas and District 8.
What began as a temporary solution in 1990 is finally being replaced with a permanent investment in the future of public safety.
This groundbreaking represents more than the construction of another City building. It represents a new era in how Dallas recruits, educates, trains and develops its police officers.
More Than a Police Academy
The decision to co-locate the academy on the UNT Dallas campus creates opportunities that simply could not exist at a traditional stand-alone police training facility.
New recruits will be able to train to become Dallas police officers while being immersed in a four-year university environment. Officers will have opportunities to continue their education, pursue degrees and certificates, participate in leadership development, and remain connected to higher education throughout their careers.
The campus will also bring together the Dallas Police Department, UNT Dallas and the Caruth Police Institute, strengthening the connection between real-world policing, academic research, evidence-based practices and leadership development.
This creates the opportunity to train not just an officer for today, but to develop the whole officer for an entire career.
The new training environment is being designed to support academic instruction, tactical training, physical fitness, wellness, simulation-based learning and professional development. It will serve recruits, current Dallas police officers, supervisors and law enforcement leaders while also creating opportunities to support regional public-safety training.
The location also strengthens one of Dallas’ greatest assets — UNT Dallas, the only public four-year university located within the City of Dallas — while bringing another major institutional investment to Southern Dallas.
This partnership can create new pathways between education and public safety, expose students to careers in law enforcement and criminal justice, strengthen recruitment and retention, and create opportunities for officers to advance their education without separating their professional development from their academic development.
That is what makes this model different.
A Long-Term Investment in Dallas
The new academy is currently expected to be completed and open in 2028.
When those doors open, we will not simply be moving the Dallas Police Academy from Red Bird into a newer building.
We will be closing the chapter on a temporary facility that served Dallas for nearly four decades and opening a new chapter in which our training facilities finally reflect the level of professionalism we expect from the men and women of the Dallas Police Department.
For decades, we have asked our officers to train at the highest level while providing them facilities that did not match that expectation.
Today, we begin changing that.
The promise made in 1990 that the Red Bird facility would be temporary is finally being honored.
And I am especially proud that this historic investment in public safety, higher education and the future of Dallas is being made right here in Southern Dallas and District 8. The historical points are supported by City records: Dallas recruit training at Red Bird began in 1990 as a temporary arrangement; in-service operations expanded into additional leased space in 2012; Dallas voters approved the 2024 Bond Program on May 4, including $50 million for the academy; and the UNT Dallas model is intended to integrate police training with higher education, research, wellness and continuing professional development. (Dallas City Hall)
