In a surprise reversal, City Hall has dropped its plan to build a new training building for the city Fire Department on 2 acres of lawn at the Hickory Hill Community Center in South Side after a two-year effort to make it happen.

In an email obtained by the Free Press, the city’s chief administrative officer, Lincoln Saunders, stated that the new training building that provides simulated fires for recruits and veterans to train in handling blazes would be built in Sandston in Henrico County.

The location that Fire Chief Melvin Carter described as too distant and too costly is the site of the current “burn building” that is no longer usable.

Mr. Saunders stated that the Fire Department would continue to use classroom space at Hickory Hill, a former school, for recruit training and refresher courses.

In a statement, Mayor Levar M. Stoney noted that he had requested the change based on “further feedback from residents.”

Eighth District City Councilwoman Reva M. Trammell, who supported the Hickory Hill location, said, “It’s okay with me. I’m tired of our fire chief and our firefighters being fussed at and falsely accused” of seeking to damage Hickory Hill.

Ms. Trammell successfully lobbied the council in May to override decisions of the city’s Urban Design Committee and the Planning Commission to reject the Hickory Hill location.

The Planning Commission as well as the committee found the selection of Hickory Hill flouted the Richmond 300 Master Plan and the policy the mayor and the council had instituted calling for expansion of green space, particularly in South Side.

Neither the mayor nor Mr. Saunders mentioned the “feedback” included legal and environmental challenges to the use of the site for the regional training center. The administration had not disclosed publicly that the “burn building” was to serve six fire departments, including the city’s.

A lawsuit seeking to block the issuance of a building permit had been filed in June by opponents based on alleged violations of environmental laws, and the state Department of Environmental Quality also had received a request to investigate the city’s decision to build at Hickory Hill as a violation of the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act.