The Lake Charles Fire Department will soon have a new training and administrative facility

LAKE CHARLES, La. (KPLC) – A former church currently sits abandoned at 1017 Sixth Avenue, but it will soon be home to a new administrative and training facility for the Lake Charles Fire Department.

The department’s former training facility near McNeese State University was damaged by the 2020 hurricanes.

“We had to have it torn down and instead of replacing it in that area, we had the option of just moving it and building a larger facility,” Lake Charles Fire Chief Delton Carter said.

The new facility will house the fire department’s administrative, communications, training and planning staff, as well as the fire protection department, in one building.

Carter said the new training facility will be more technologically advanced than the old one.

“We will be able to train a lot of firefighters in the community, probably in southwest Louisiana. “It will help them with their education because we will set up a facility for them,” Carter said.

Construction of the new facility will cost approximately $16 million. Of that, $5 million will be funded by the city. The remainder of the funding is provided by FEMA and the Community Development Block Grant for Disaster Recovery.

The new facility will break ground for the district under the leadership of Lake Charles City Councilman Rodney Geyen.

“It’s all been positive and they’re excited to see a facility like this in our neighborhood,” Geyen said. “We will develop more things that will improve what we are trying to do. The most important thing will be a place where effective training can take place.”

The new facility will allow the fire department to move to a more central area of ​​Lake Charles.

A community meeting was held this evening where residents were able to find out about the plans for the facility. Officials said they plan to break ground before the end of the year.

Construction on the project is expected to take 15 months.

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