Pittsburgh To Move Public Safety Operations To Old VA Hospital

PITTSBURGH, PA - The city has officially acquired the former Veterans Administration’s Highland Drive campus in Lincoln-Lemington. The 167-acre property, which was acquired for free, will become a regional public safety training site and allow for stormwater management along Washington Boulevard.

The VA closed the medical center in 2013, moving its operations to neighboring facilities in Oakland and O’Hara. The city submitted plans to the General Services to take over the property in 2018.

Federal government agencies approved its use by the city as a public safety complex and formally transferred it to the city earlier this year. The city plans to use it as a state of the art public safety training academy; a public safety department and emergency management headquarters; a home for police K-9 and mounted units; storage of emergency response and winter weather response vehicles and equipment.

The acquisition will allow the city to move out of properties in owns in the Strip District and the Emergency Medical Services headquarters in Shadyside; opt out of leases for police headquarters and the police training academy in Allegheny West; and relocate Washington Boulevard public safety facilities to allow for stormwater remediation along the frequently flooded road.

“This site provides us with a historic opportunity that we cannot let pass us by,” Mayor Bill Peduto said in a news release. “We can provide a solution to decades of intractable flood mitigation challenges in the area, offer the best in life-saving training to personnel from around the region, and expand the city’s tax base”