County Converts Closed Call Center Into Hub for Training & Collaboration

Leaders in Tuscaloosa County gathered Wednesday to raise three flags outside the new Synergic Center, a new regional hub for training and collaboration between law enforcement and government agencies and more.

The 47,000-square-foot Center sits on 5th Street in Northport across from Kentuck Park in the former home of the FIS Call Center that permanently closed in 2020.

The entire Tuscaloosa County Commission and their chairman, Probate Judge Rob Robertson, were on site for a "soft opening" at the Center Thursday that featured a flag-raising and visits from a long list of local dignitaries.

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"The simplest way to describe Synergic Center is that it is a limited access facility focused on innovation, education, and collaboration," Robertson told a crowd. "This project, as you will see today, is not 100% complete, but it is really close. Over the next few weeks, we'll be putting the finishing touches on media, communications, and furnishings, and then we'll shift to the fun part, which is starting programming and moving in tenants."

A lot will happen in the massive new space, but perhaps most notably, all law enforcement officers trained in the area will do so at the new Center. Every police officer in the state undergoes the same training by the Alabama Peace Officers Standards & Training Commission.

For the last 25 years, The APOSTC Law Enforcement Academy Tuscaloosa has been run locally out of the terminal at the Tuscaloosa National Airport. Now, officers-to-be will be trained in larger spaces with more options at the Synergic Center.

Future law enforcement officers in training raised the US flag, the Alabama flag and the APOSTC flag outside the center Wednesday.

The event drew Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox, many elected and appointed officials from Northport, Sheriff Ron Abernathy, LEAT Director Captain Randy Vaughn and many more.

Inside the sprawling 47,000-square-foot center, the county has created a state-of-the-art facility to include computer labs, conference rooms, places for secure communications and meetings and more.

The halls are lined with gorgeous storyboard displays detailing the history of the region, which were taken from the now-closed Tuscaloosa Transportation Museum.

The unique needs of the closed call center also gave the county uniquely strong infrastructure, like two massive generators which will keep the Synergic Center online in pretty much any conceivable circumstances.

In addition to LEAT, future partners moving into or making use of the space will include Cyber units from the Sheriff's Office, Violent Crimes Unit and more. Assisted by artificial intelligence and access to more data than ever before, they are up to some truly bleeding-edge crime-fighting in the Center.

"This is the next era of law enforcement," Robertson said.

The space will also house nonpolice tenants, like members of the Heritage Commission, who are already in the Center digitizing hand-written records from the Civil War and before.

Shelton State Community College has also jumped on board and its staff are already teaching limited classes at the Center - a small group of students were receiving daycare certification training on Wednesday.

West AlabamaWorks! will have a presence in the new space and can hook up increasingly popular "training trailers" to the utilities on offer at the Center.

Other tenants are coming on board now and some space is still available for public or private entities who could be a good fit.

County leaders are confident, though - the Wednesday soft opening is only the beginning of countless exciting things to come at the new Synergic Center on 5th Street in Northport.

For more coverage of news in west Alabama, stay connected to the Tuscaloosa Thread.