On January 10th, the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office marked a significant milestone -- the groundbreaking for the construction of an advanced regional training facility.

Located at the corner of West Fairground Rd. and Stella Rd., Rosenberg, the training complex will encompass 30.25 acres of Fort Bend County property.

The training complex will be among the most advanced regional training complexes in the metropolitan Houston area and the largest in Fort Bend County. The 189,523 square foot complex will host training sessions for municipal, county, state, and federal law enforcement agencies.

The two-story training facility will be 99,267 square feet and will contain eight modern classrooms, an auditorium, administrative offices, conference rooms, and space for the Sheriff’s Office Emergency Communications Center and EMS administrative offices. The facility will house academy instructors and supervisors, administrative staff, Kids and Cops Officers, and firearms and driving skills instructors. Additionally, telecommunicators, dispatchers, supervisors, and support staff will occupy the second floor.

A separate firearms range on the same complex will be 80,193 square feet, facilitating both rifle and handgun training and qualification, allowing for realistic simulations of active shooter scenarios. Overhead walkways will enable instructors to evaluate training and will allow teams of officers to manage threat exercises.

The training complex will also include a half-mile concrete driving track.

Since the founding of the Sheriff’s Office in 1837, employees have received firearms training at outdoor firearms ranges owned by other law enforcement agencies. This new complex provides the County’s first-ever firearms training center and will be available to Sheriff’s Office employees and officers of other agencies.

The complex will also house a skills tower for SWAT teams, an area for K9 training, a physical fitness center, padded defensive tactics room, and a computer lab.

The initiative to establish an advanced training complex in Fort Bend County began in 2021, when Sheriff's Command Staff noticed that employees had difficulty scheduling use of a local outdoor firearms range to show weapons proficiency. Additionally, the lack of available classrooms often resulted in deputies undergoing training at distant facilities, incurring substantial costs.

On September 26, 2023, the Fort Bend County Commissioners Court approved a County Property Lease for the Sheriff’s Office Training Facility. Fort Bend County Texas Public Facility Corporation received $150 million to lend to CFC-EpiCenter to build the training complex and lease county land to construct the facility. Fort Bend County will lease the land and building at an annual cost of $7.5 million over a 30-year period after which Fort Bend County will assume ownership of the building.

“This is an outstanding opportunity for law enforcement personnel in Fort Bend County and this region to receive skills-based training in a modern facility with a quality firearms range, well-designed driving track, progressive computer lab, and technologically advanced classrooms,” said Sheriff Eric Fagan. “We

are pleased to have the support of Commissioners Court in creating a modern training complex to keep our employees highly trained, skilled, and competent. A well-trained department provides quality public safety services to our community.”

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