The Corpus Christi Police Academy is growing. Cadets will soon leave behind their current 8,000-square foot building on Corona Drive for a new 34,000-square foot facility on Del Mar College’s Oso Creek Campus. The academy had been at the location, a former shooting range, for about 40 years.
“During the late ‘90s, early 2000s, they had plans for creating a public safety training academy. They did it in phases, and phase one was the outdoor range, and that’s all we ever got to,” Senior Officer Travis Pace stated. Pace was a training instructor with the academy for 17 years.
Pace explained how classes have grown through the years. “When I came on in 1990, class [size] was 22. We have classes of 30, the largest class was 50, right now we been averaging 30-35 per class.”
One of the big problems with the current facility was the limited space the academy had access to. The rooms are small and crowded. They use public school tracks for physical training and exercise, so they are at the mercy of the school’s schedule for access and may have to delay their training schedule. And there are only three single-stall restrooms and one shower stall, with the academy having to bring in portable toilets to handle the extra recruits.
On Feb. 16, 2023, it was announced that Corpus Christi Police Academy was going to receive a new and improved 34,000-square foot building at Del Mar’s Oso Creek Campus. “I’m still excited about the news, it’s awesome, this building is going to serve us so well for the future. We are going from an 8,000-square foot building to a 34,000-square foot building, and the possibilities are endless with it. I am more than excited. Excited is an understatement,” Pace said.
While Pace gave the tour, he explained all the upgrades they were receiving. Among the upgrades are more multiple-stall restrooms and showers, a larger armory, larger classrooms, a larger weight room, a larger tactics room and their own outdoor quarter-mile track. All these upgrades are going to help the academy stick to their schedule, help with morale with the staff and cadets, and provide a better setting for the cadets to feel like it is a professional police academy.
Senior Officer Jennifer Collier said they expect to move into the new facility by October this year. The current class, the 84th Session, will make the switch and the 85th Session will be the first class to use the new building for their entire academy experience.
“If you’re interested in becoming a police officer with Corpus Christi Police Department, call Senior Officer Imelda Rjasko at 361-886-2626,” Collier said. “And the website people can use to get more information is https://careers.ccpolice.com.”