The need for the new training center grew out of the dual need to provide classroom and practical training space for the college’s own criminal justice program and a police academy in the same facility. Golden West College criminal justice program stakeholders wanted to ensure proper and clear separation between the cadets and students for safety and security.

The design provided an orderly sequence of training. Covering a required range of experiences from spaces for the most academic classroom education to hands-on, intensely practical training experience within the span of a rather compact urban space, a crisp training flow that builds upon layers of academic and practical training regimen. Flow and flexibility were crucial goals in the efficient design-build delivery of this project, in service to an overarching goal to train future police officers with an ethos of community protection and partnership.