ALTOONA, Pa. (WTAJ) — AMED is moving forward with plans for their new building.

The emergency response organization awarded Venture Construction Services with the general contract for their new facility.

The decision came after plans were delayed due to bids coming in higher than predicted.

AMED Executive Directer Gary Watters said the new facility will add much needed space for training new EMTs.

“We need to include an area to be able to do education training for our employees and to bring new employees in to EMS, so, by having this new training, we’re actually gonna become a training institute, which would allow us to teach our own EMS and EMR classes,” he said.

Watters added the new facility give them more opportunities to help the community.

“Not only will we be doing EMS work, we’ll also be doing community classes, community first aid classes, CPR classes, and we’ll actually have a facility now that we’ll be able to have the public in and be able to do those for them,” Watters said.

AMED plans to break ground for the new building in the next few weeks.