The site of the new Sunrise Senior Living, which will be located at 303 N. Washington St., will be used for Alexandria Fire Department training drills over the next week, according to a news release.

Sunrise is allowing AFD to use the abandoned building space at the location before construction officially starts. Two-hour AFD training sessions will take place from 8 a.m. to 3:25 p.m. on Nov. 8, 9 and 12. AFD often looks to hold training sessions at sites that provide real world experience for firefighters, according to the release.

“We are aggressively pursuing any opportunity to use a building we are not familiar with,” Fire Lieutenant Raymond Ginman said in a statement.

Construction on the Sunrise of Old Town is tentatively scheduled to begin by the end of 2018, Sunrise spokesperson Jennifer Clark said.