The Gainey administration is planning to build a massive police training and administrative compound on the site of the former Veterans Administration hospital in Lincoln-Lemington. Local activists discovered a so-called request for qualifications web page inviting contractors to show they have the capacity to take on the project. An RFQ is the first step in the formal procurement process. According to the above-linked page, qualified vendors will receive a request for proposals by January 10th, 2025. The city is facing a May 2026 deadline to finalize a development plan as part of its agreement with the federal government to acquire the site.
Two documents linked on the RFQ page (re-hosted on this blog) reveal the scope of the project. Included in so-called Option B, the preferred approach, are a firing range, emergency vehicle driving course, and K-9 training facility, along with a burn tower for the Bureau of Fire and several other training and logistical operations. Of particular concern is the so-called Public Safety Training Village, which will incorporate “storefronts, low rise buildings and streets/intersections.” The “village” is an obvious attempt to imitate Atlanta’s Cop City, a training environment and mock city for riot cops that has sparked widespread opposition.
The city acquired the VA site in 2020 during the Peduto mayoral administration, but until now details concerning its planned use have been scarce. Peduto’s plan seems to have been to consolidate the police academy and public safety headquarters in the new location to save money on rent, but it is unclear what other functions were envisioned for the site. In 2023 Gainey dropped the office consolidation portion of the plan, ostensibly to free up money for road improvements. This leaves the city saddled paying rent on the police headquarters building on Western Avenue and the Public Safety offices near CCAC, while also budgeting $50 million over five years for the upgraded training facilities. The RFQ provides the first glimpse into the project anyone outside the administration has had in over a year. Gainey has not even kept the city council abreast of his plans for the site, let alone issued a press release or reached out to Lincoln-Lemington residents.
There are a host of questions and problems with the proposal in its current form. In the face of a looming budget crunch, $50 million is a lot of money, and it’s not even clear that it will be enough to finish the project. The Atlanta cop city has already seen multiple cost overruns above its initial estimate of $90 million. The RFQ does briefly mention funding from the federal Department of Justice, but not how much the DOJ would contribute There is also the possibility that the incoming Trump administration would withhold any promised money on the grounds that Pittsburgh is a sanctuary city. A plausible scenario has Gainey or a future Corey O’Connor administration throwing undocumented immigrants under the bus by signing Pittsburgh up for the 287(g) program in exchange for federal dollars for Pittsburgh Cop City.
In addition to a budget crunch, Pittsburgh is facing a housing crunch. Rising rents are causing increased homelessness and housing precarity. The administration’s only response has been to finish building the hopelessly inadequate Second Ave. Commons shelter (another Peduto project), while sweeping unhoused residents under the rug with regular camp evictions. Pittsburgh acquired the VA site at no cost through the federal public benefit conveyance program. According to the 2020 Trib Live article linked above, “Federal regulations require the property to be used only for public safety and emergency response.”, but this is untrue. There are several categories of PBC that Peduto could have chosen besides public safety, including one for homeless assistance. While the initial deal with the VA happened before Gainey took office, he still could have tried to change the terms. It’s not like the VA had anyone else to unload the site on.
Alternatively, Gainey could at least have canceled the flashy, expensive aspects of the project he inherited. Nobody outside law enforcement was clamoring for a “public safety training village” in 2022. Consolidating various headquarters and offices in one place while eliminating new facilities would have been an uncontroversial cost cutting measure. Instead, the mayor decided to hand his police department an exorbitantly expensive gift, at the expense of street repair, snow removal, housing, and any number of other more pressing needs. The move has to be seen as part of Gainey’s reelection bid. He’s facing a challenge next year from Corey O’Connor, a centrist, pro-police Democrat in the Peduto/Rich Fitzgerald mold. Promoting a cop city in Pittsburgh is part of the mayor’s strategy to peel off law-and-order voters from O’Connor, knowing that progressive organizations will continue to back him because they have nowhere else to go. Gainey is thus adopting Kamala Harris’ approach in the presidential election, in the only county in Pennsylvania where Harris collected as much support as did Biden in 2020. It’s a cynical, but potentially effective move.
None of this was necessary or desirable. The last thing Pittsburgh needs is a dedicated police training compound designed to make cops even more violent than they already are, especially in a second Trump administration. Gainey, and Peduto before him, could have initiated a community conversation about the best use for the VA site. Instead, both mayors chose to shove a fait accompli down the city’s throat in the runup to an election year. Gainey’s timeline for the project is obviously tailored to have a general contractor, or at least a short list of candidates, in place by election day 2025. Unlike in 2020 when Peduto acquired the VA site, the current electoral climate is conducive to a strategy of police accommodation.
Like all strategies though, this one has associated risks. For a look at Gainey’s worst-case scenario we need only turn to Atlanta, where a sustained and diverse campaign against the OG Cop City has ground construction to a virtual halt, imposed substantial additional security costs, and severely damaged the reelection hopes of mayor Andre Dickens. Resistance in Atlanta has focused on pressuring construction companies and other vendors to refrain from bidding or stop work on Cop City, an approach that could bear fruit in Pittsburgh as well. With this in mind, it will be interesting to see who ends up submitting bids for the project.