A vacant 91-acre parcel formerly used for the Atterbury Job Corps, in yellow, was bought by Patriot Products and may be used as a specialized training facility.
Submitted map
CAMP ATTERBURY — The mystery of what may open on land near Camp Atterbury is solved.
Patriot Products LLC, A Franklin-based company that is a leading product provider for the U.S. Department of War, recently bought and acquired approximately 91 acres of property previously managed by the federal Department of Labor’s General Services Administration. The company is planning to create a specialized tactical training facility for military personnel, law enforcement and first responders, said Daniel Johnson, vice president/MMBR at Patriot Products.
The acquired property is located at the corner of Hospital Road and Schoolhouse Road, south of the Atterbury Job Corp center. The site was originally part of Camp Atterbury and was used by the U.S. Army. In the early 1980s, it was transferred to the U.S. Department of Labor to use as part of the Job Corps center.
The property was “deemed excess to U.S. government needs by the Department of Government Efficiency,” Johnson said. This was because the site was not actively used and the Labor Department reported the property as an excess to the GSA, officials previously said.
Nine buildings and structures that are no longer needed to support the Atterbury Job Corps Center currently sit on 65 acres of the property. The remaining approximately 26 acres on the west side of the property are a forested area that is undeveloped, according to the listing.
Now with the property sale, a new era of life is on the horizon for the acreage. Once plans are finalized, the new specialized tactical training facility would be built in phases, and initial plans involve several different elements that would benefit first responders. The development would include a tactical indoor training center that could simulate hostage situations, school shootings, high-risk vehicle approaches and more. This could “prepare law enforcement and first responders in immersive environments,” Johnson said.
There are plans for an indoor tactical live-fire range, an Atmospheric Military Operations in Urban Terrain, or MOUT, Village that can replicate “various global theater environments,” and a tactical driving course which could accommodate Pursuit Intervention Technique, or PIT, maneuvers and other advanced techniques, Johnson said.
The property would also have a K-9 training site for search and rescue and drug detection operations, a live burn building, facilities for Special Forces missing training that include subterranean training environments, and a testing ground for Patriot Products’ electronic training and robotic products, Johnson said.
In the future, Patriot Products may potentially add a derailed train training area, he added.
The company has not decided whether it will ask for incentives like a tax abatement for the proposed development. There is also no specific timeline for the project, Johnson said.
The property was listed in a public auction on March 10, and the property sale to Patriot Products was finalized on Sept. 2.
A bidding war ensued for the property that reached around 149 bids and surpassed $1.57 million, according to figures from the end of June.
