Oak Harbor opens new public safety training facility on Whidbey Island

Oak Harbor has turned a former commercial shooting range off Goldie Road into a new public safety training hub, giving the police department a local place for realistic drills, classroom work and interagency coordination without a local tax increase.

The city marked the Oak Harbor Public Safety Training Facility with a ribbon-cutting ceremony May 15 at 951 NE 21st Court, with community tours from 3 to 5 p.m. The 13,000-square-foot building was once home to Anchor Point, and city officials said its adaptive reuse gives the department a better tool for daily operations and long-term planning on Whidbey Island.

Oak Harbor bought the property in 2025 for $2.7 million, using a $250,000 state grant, $400,000 in opioid settlement money, a $50,000 accreditation reimbursement, $300,000 in police staffing savings and general fund dollars. City leaders said the purchase did not require a local tax increase, a detail likely to resonate in a community watching every public safety dollar closely.

State Rep. Dave Paul, D-Oak Harbor, helped secure the state grant, linking the project to support from the Washington State Legislature. For city officials, the facility is more than a new address. It is a way to keep more training close to home, strengthen preparation with regional partners and make better use of a building that already had the bones for firearms instruction.

The new layout includes about one-third range space, plus a large open training area, classroom, offices, a virtual reality space, an armory, a gun-storage vault and locker rooms. That mix gives the Oak Harbor Police Department room for live-fire work, scenario-based instruction and equipment handling in one place, rather than scattering those functions across different locations.

Police Chief Tony Slowik said the facility marks a major step forward for realistic training for officers and regional partners. He has also said the site could someday house a new police department, replacing the aging headquarters on Southeast Barrington Drive. That possibility gives the project a broader civic meaning: the new training center is not just a retrofit, but a foothold for the next phase of Oak Harbor’s public safety infrastructure.

City leaders also hope the facility will draw regional training events, adding an economic side benefit to the public safety mission. For residents, the measure of success will be whether the building helps officers train more often, coordinate more effectively with nearby agencies and respond faster when emergencies test Island County’s limited resources.