An emergency training center nearly 10 years in the making is on the verge of starting construction in east Redmond, but not before local agencies move dozens of homeless people living in tents and trailers.
Deschutes County staff are drafting agreements to pave the way for CORE3, a planned training facility for police officers and firefighters that will double as a coordination center in emergencies. The agreements would let the County lease the undeveloped site to the Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council, a quasi-government agency, which would pay $300,000 for the County to clean up the land before taking ownership.
Staff got the nod from county commissioners on June 17 to draft the agreements and bring them before the board at a later date.
The goal is to break ground by mid-September on the first phase of the project — a three-quarter-mile asphalt track and pad for emergency vehicle training, along with fencing around the site and a new road. That’s expected to cost about $10 million, said Ed Fitch, mayor of Redmond and chair of the project’s board of directors. Collaborators on the project include cities, counties, fire, police and other agencies from across Central Oregon.
Leaders envision CORE3 as much more than the first phase, but the funding hasn’t been secured. Fitch said they’ll need another $20 million to $30 million to build a statewide emergency resilience center at the site that could serve as a headquarters for state government in the event of a large disaster. Fitch cites an earthquake caused by the Cascadia Subduction Zone, which scientists believe could occur in the coming decades.
“The primary objective is to get this done for police and fire training,” Fitch told the Source. “The resiliency center is priority number two.”
But homelessness on undeveloped government-owned lands in Deschutes County has ballooned since agencies started planning for CORE3 in 2018. County officials estimate there are about 60 people living in about 40 encampments across the 300-acre property along the eastern edge of Redmond’s urban growth boundary, just north of U.S. Highway 126.
That’s part of a larger tension between the City, County and people living outside in east Redmond across a swath of lands slated for industrial development. In an effort to clear the land and address camping, the City and County have ramped up sweeps and cleanups while partnering to build a 36-site managed camp in the area meant to help people transition to housing or shelter. But a lack of service providers willing to run the camp delayed its opening.
As construction projects move ahead, some campers have moved outside of Redmond into an area named the “green zone,” County-owned land without any planned projects.
According to figures presented June 17, environmental remediation of the CORE3 site will cost $1.1 million.
In total, the project has accumulated $36 million in funding, including a $13 million land donation from Deschutes County and nearly $20 million from the Oregon legislature. According to Fitch, another $20 million was earmarked in a bill this session, but the money was never approved. He hopes more funding will come in 2027.
Long term, the CORE3 project could include an indoor training facility, a fire training tower, a covered gun range, and other facilities to help prepare for anything from wildland fires to train car derailments.
“At the rate that we’re growing in Central Oregon, we really wanted to build that into our vision,” Shelby Knight, a project coordinator for the intergovernmental council, told the Board of Commissioners June 17. “However, this is pretty long term. This is going to be opportunistic, it’s going to be as utilization grows, as funding arises and the partners at the table are committed to working toward that vision together.”
Construction of the training track and driving skills pad should be complete by spring 2027. The construction cost for those items is about $8 million, according to a presentation by Knight.
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