A multi-million-dollar public safety project that’s been years in the making has come to fruition on the northside of the county.
Center Grove Community School Corporation’s new Emergency Operations Center is completed, and now houses first responders from the Center Grove Police Department, Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, Bargersville Community Fire Department and White River Township Fire Department. The $5 million, nearly 15,000-square-foot center at 2309 S. Morgantown Road is less than a block north of Center Grove Elementary School in White River Township.
The Center Grove police side of the center includes offices, K9 kennels, a monitoring room and space for sheriff’s office deputies. The fire department side includes barracks and kitchen space.
“I’m about 99% positive we’re the first school corporation in Indiana to partner with two fire departments and the sheriff’s department to create an emergency operations center,” said Bill Long, Center Grove’s assistant superintendent.
With police and fire — and their emergency vehicles — under one roof, first responders will be able to respond quickly to emergencies in the area, particularly at Center Grove school buildings. Center Grove police moved into the center in late December, and first responders from Bargersville and White River fire departments moved in last week, creating Station 254. The station number comes from a combination of Bargersville and White River’s station number systems, with Bargersville naming its stations in the 200s range, and White River Township naming its stations in the 50s, Long said.
They’ve already been on a few runs together, he said.
“We’ve always had a good relationship with all the agencies, and now we’re gonna be in one building and it just makes (the relationship) even stronger,” Long said.
While most of the agencies have moved in, they are still waiting for equipment to be installed. For example, some of the offices and spaces are still waiting on computers, including the district’s new monitoring room, where Center Grove police will be able to monitor the hundreds of cameras placed in and around the district’s nine buildings. The room is still operational in the meantime, he said.
A shared fitness room also remains unfinished, and the sheriff’s office has not yet moved in due to waiting for equipment to be sent to the center, Long said.
The center came in under budget, which Long attributes to the project manager the district hired, Indianapolis-based AECOM Hunt, he said.
The decision to create the center resulted from a security assessment in 2018. Results from the assessment showed the district needed to improve its live monitoring at its schools and shorten response times within the district, both of which the center accomplishes, Long said.
Monitoring is available at all of the district’s schools, but there was no centralized place where people were focused on just monitoring the district’s cameras and alarms all the time. The district got lucky and reduced some response times when White River Township Fire built a station in anticipation of I-69. White River Township Fire Station 53 is located between Center Grove Middle School North and Pleasant Grove Elementary, near the Fairview Road and Morgantown Road roundabout. But that wasn’t enough, he said.
With an estimated 10,000 people traveling through the district on any given day, the district wanted to see how it could better serve the community, Long said.
The district began conversations with White River Township Fire, because the department wanted to expand its ambulance services to the area. Then, conversations with Bargersville Fire began because the district had initially planned to build the center south of Stones Crossing Road, which would have been in Bargersville’s Fire Protection District. But costs for that site were too high, so the department moved north toward Center Grove Elementary school, he said.
The center was initially set to open last January, but was delayed after the Center Grove School Board voted against one of the initial bid packages for the project. Project costs could not exceed $5.17 million to avoid raising taxes for White River Township residents, and in April 2020, the school board rejected a $6.28 million bid. The board approved the nearly $5 million bid package in November 2020, and no taxes were raised for the project.
“(This center) serves our community greatly. All of White River Township is better served when we have better fire protection coverage and better ambulance service coverage,” Long said.
Despite some misconceptions, Center Grove has not created its own fire department. Rather, the district has given local fire departments more space to help the community, he said.
Having the two fire departments work together under one roof is important, and provides better coverage to the area. It was also important to move the district’s police department to account for future growth, including a possible expansion of the high school down the line, school officials said.
The most interesting thing about the endeavor is the joint cooperation between multiple agencies, which will benefit so many groups in the area, fire officials say. The center is a boost to public safety for Center Grove Schools, and Bargersville and White River Township residents. First responders from Bargersville and White River Fire, along with the sheriff’s office and Center Grove Police, are training and coordinating policy together, said Jeremy Pell, White River Township fire chief.
“We are working as one team for public safety,” Pell said. “It’s incredible how well all these different specialties work together. I truly consider everyone in this building … brothers and sisters.”
Thirty years ago, there was a time when borders between districts were so defined that departments didn’t really work together compared to how it is now, said Mike Pruitt, Bargersville Fire deputy chief.
“(Today), it’s a model people and other agencies across the state and other organizations will look at as a route they may want to take,” Pruitt said. “It’s a win-win situation.”
IF YOU GO
Center Grove Emergency Operations Center Ribbon Cutting and Open House
What: The Center Grove Community School Corporation will host a ribbon cutting and open house for the new Center Grove Emergency Operations Center, a joint venture between the school district, the White River Township Fire Department and the Bargersville Community Fire Department. The facility is home to the new Fire Station 254. It includes space for the new headquarters of the Center Grove Police Department and a Johnson County Sheriff’s Department substation.
When: 10 a.m. Jan. 27
Where: 2309 S. Morgantown Road, Greenwood
