Swat teams, K-9 units, and fire fighters are expected to spend some time in the neighborhoods targeted for takeover by the Pro Football Hall of Fame Village project—but it will just be for practice.
The “Disneyland of the NFL”—as Hall of Fame President David Baker calls it—is expanding into adjacent residential areas, buying the houses which will be demolished as the project goes forward.
But, before any tearing down, A half a dozen of the structures are being made available to local safety forces as real-life training environments. Hall of Fame Senior Vice President Pete Fierle says “What is good here is giving a variety of footprints, different layouts and different materials and crawl spaces and flooring of that nature; that really helps them as they are getting some great training and using a background that we think will be helpful to them.”
The Canton Regional SWAT Cooperative, Canton K9 unit and Canton City and Plain and Jackson township fire departments have been invited to use the buildings over a three to five day period in the next two weeks.
