Tennessee's new Safety headquarters at Cockrill Bend gets a $48.9 million permit

Nashville issued a building permit on Oct. 30 for a new headquarters for the Tennessee Department of Safety, a four-story office building at 7574 Cockrill Bend Blvd. The permit lists 100,450 square feet and a reported value of $48.9 million.

It's the office piece of the state's Multi-Agency Law Enforcement Training Academy, known as MALETA, the campus the state broke ground on at Cockrill Bend three years ago. The state announced the headquarters back then. This is the first price we've seen on it.

The permit

The permit's wording is short. It covers construction of "a four story, 100,450 sq ft, office building dedicated to the Tennessee Department of Safety." It's the only permit we hold at the address so far.

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That $48.9 million is the value reported on the permit, an estimate filed with the city. It isn't a contract amount.

A $415 million campus on the Cumberland

Gov. Bill Lee broke ground on MALETA on Sept. 27, 2023, according to the governor's office. The state put the whole campus at $415 million on about 800 acres of state-owned land along the Cumberland River at Cockrill Bend.

The plan has three parts: training buildings, housing and dining for more than 400 cadets and 200 officers in for in-service training, and a new administrative headquarters. The academy will serve the state's law enforcement training academy, its police standards commission, the Department of Safety and Homeland Security, the Department of Correction and the TBI, the release said.

The land sits near John C. Tune Airport, WPLN reported at the groundbreaking. Lawmakers approved the money in 2022 as part of the governor's budget. Plans also call for a firing range complex and a course for emergency vehicle driving.

Lee told WPLN he saw the need after touring the old academy, describing "tiles missing and 40-year-old bathrooms and bunk rooms."

Classrooms, a courtroom and mock jail pods

The main training building will hold simulation spaces, a moot courtroom, mock detention pods, a multipurpose gym and more than 20 classrooms, with an obstacle course outside, Correctional News reported in December 2023.

The headquarters is its own building on the same campus.

One building, one department

The permit and the 2023 plans don't describe the headquarters the same way. The governor's release, WPLN and Correctional News all described one administrative headquarters shared by the Department of Correction and the Department of Safety and Homeland Security. The permit describes the building as "dedicated to the Tennessee Department of Safety" and doesn't mention Correction. We couldn't find a public statement explaining the difference.

Planning nationally

The permit lands as national construction planning cooled. The Dodge Momentum Index fell 9% in October from September, Construction Dive reported, as commercial planning dropped 13.4%. Institutional planning slipped just 1.5%. "Institutional planning edged lower but remained resilient," Dodge's Sarah Martin said.

With the permit in hand, the next step at 7574 Cockrill Bend is construction of the headquarters itself. The state hasn't announced a completion date for the building.

See all of Nashville's latest permit numbers, updated weekly.

Sources

• Office of the Governor of Tennessee, "Gov. Lee Champions Multi-Agency Law Enforcement Training Academy" (Sept. 27, 2023): tn.gov
• WPLN, on the groundbreaking for the state law enforcement training campus (Sept. 28, 2023): wpln.org
• Correctional News, on the plans for Tennessee's law enforcement training campus (Dec. 20, 2023): correctionalnews.com
• Construction Dive, "Commercial pullback led to lower construction planning in October" (Nov. 9, 2026): constructiondive.com
• Metro Nashville building permit 2026011937.
• Photo: Daniel Lobo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons: commons.wikimedia.org