Roswell City Council approves purchase of shooting range for new 911 center

ROSWELL, Ga. — On Monday, the Roswell City Council unanimously voted to approve buying the SharpShooters property on Alpharetta Highway to build its new 911 Call Center, Emergency Operations Center and a shooting range for the Roswell Police Department.

According to the Roswell city government’s announcement, the property was purchased for $5.9 million and will be used as part of the city’s $52 million public safety capital projects plan, approved in a November 2022 bond referendum.

City officials said bond funds will be used to purchase the property and renovate the existing building.

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Leaders, including Mayor Kurt Wilson, said the plan and development made good on their promise to residents to enhance and improve public safety in Roswell.

“We promised Roswell voters that we would use bond monies to invest in public safety capital projects, and that’s exactly what we are doing,” Wilson said. “We are moving forward with purpose and are being very intentional in everything we do, including this purchase for new 911 and Emergency Operation Centers and a shooting range for our police officers.”

The SharpShooters property location is a reported 634 acres and is owned by the North Fulton Shooting Club, the city said. It also houses an 18,304-square-foot building, with a shooting range, sales center, workshop and storage area inside.

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City officials said they’ll be renovating the existing building to create the new 911 Center and Emergency Operations Center, while retaining the 11,800 square-foot shooting range. They also said renovating this structure versus building a new one from scratch helped the city save a significant amount of money while allowing it to keep its public safety promise more quickly.

“We are working very hard to make sure we get the maximum benefit from every dollar that the taxpayers have committed when they approved the bond referendum,” Wilson said. “We are very fortunate this property became available for us to purchase.”

Officials said they expect the building to easily tie into their existing communication network, while also being able to generate revenue from the shooting range by being able to rent it out to other agencies in the area.

Design of the new facility and renovations are expected to take 16 months, finishing in the fall 2025. Final purchase and closing on the property will be subject to the standard due diligence review, with city officials expecting to close on the property soon.

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