Hamilton County broke ground Friday on a gun range in Colerain Township. The Hamilton County Regional Safety Complex will be home to a shared Cincinnati Police and Hamilton County Sheriff's Office gun range.
It replaces an existing range in Evendale which Cincinnati began using in the 1940s, when Evendale donated the land to the city. Nearby residents in Evendale, Woodlawn and Lincoln Heights have complained for decades about noise, and psychological and environmental harm from the site.
Lincoln Heights Mayor Ruby Kinsey-Mumphrey says this day has been a long time coming for people who've had to listen to gun shots daily for decades.
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"[It's hard] to be able to endure that when you're trying to raise kids; being able to endure that when you're trying to move your village forward, when [you] know that your revenue streams are not where you would like them to be and you know that you want to improve your economic development, but you're not able to do that because nobody wants to move into the village of Lincoln Heights and listen to that. It's really hard to sell your community," she says.
Woodlawn Mayor Brian Poole says his community is excited, too.
"Our residents, especially those on the east side of Woodlawn, are certainly looking forward to afternoons and evenings that no longer include the sound of gunfire," he said.
The $31.6 million project is slated to be completed around the second quarter of 2026.
Hamilton County is carrying the bulk of the price, contributing $10 million from the county's General Fund and $10,350,000 in American Rescue Plan dollars. The city of Cincinnati is contributing $4,250,000; the state is pitching in $3 million; and the federal government is contributing $4 million.
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It will built on the site of Colerain Township's current gun range and neighboring property from the county Engineer's Office. Though the location is more rural, there are some nearby homes and parks. Commissioner Denise Driehaus noted the new facility will include acoustic tiles to mitigate noise.
"Whatever noise you hear from this gun range today, you're not going to hear that in the future because the technology has advanced so much," she said. "This will be a benefit to Colerain Township [also with] the increased police presence."
The complex will be available for use by other municipalities, and will house more than a gun range. Hamilton County Sheriff Charmaine McGuffey notes it will have space for training programs, too.
"We're not just all going to come here and just shoot guns," she said, "because we know that what law enforcement is working on and improving processes with is de-escalation. We're going to be training here for just that. We're going to be using these training classrooms for scenario training. We're going to be using these classrooms for cultural diversity training, for ABLE (Active Bystandership for Law Enforcement) training, for so many different facets of law enforcement, and that is going to be joined by the training for weapons."
Once the new facility is open, the village of Evendale is looking to transform the location of the current range into usable space for its planned AeroHub corridor, an advanced manufacturing and aerospace innovation campus.
