Big Blue Building: Massive College Point Police Academy Set to Break Ground
Even for those of us whose understanding of what police academies should be like is centered around Steve Guttenberg and The Guy Who Makes Noises, the news that NYPD's main training facility is over 40 years old is kind of alarming. This is a big city, it requires a large and well-trained police force and... well, and those are basically the most uncontroversial statements anyone could make. But while the case for a new police academy isn't appreciably more controversial, the LEED Silver Perkins + Will-designed Police Academy planned for the College Point neighborhood in Queens (covered by Stephen here) has nevertheless drawn its share of controversy, for a host of fairly reasonable reasons. The sincere fulminations came to naught, though: the city broke ground on the planned $1.5 billion development on Wednesday. Proof, again, that while you can't fight City Hall, you really can't fight City Hall and the NYPD.
NYPD's training facilities are currently dispersed widely across the city, from the Bronx to Brooklyn's Floyd Bennett Field to that middle-aged main training center in Manhattan. The 35-acre academy campus in College Point was sold as both a consolidation and upgrading of training services, and given the wide array of services planned for the academy, it's hard to argue that it won't work on those terms. Per the PlaNYC description, the Academy will feature, "a 12-acre field for emergency-vehicle training, a 450,000 square-foot physical training area, 250 wireless classrooms, a 100,000 square-foot “tactical village” with a subway car and mock street scenes, and 250 beds for visiting law enforcement agencies." Which would presumably make it the biggest hotel in Queens, as well as the city's new police training hub. The academy will rise on the former NYPD Auto Pound site, formerly the city's biggest auto impound lot and not, surprising as it may seem, much of a business hub. With his characteristic bluntness, Bloomberg described the likely impact of the academy on this fairly desolate stretch of Queens real estate. "This is certainly a better use [of the land] than the car pound, which did nothing for College Point," Bloomberg told the Queens Courier's Victor Mimoni. "The academy will do something – it remains to be seen how much."
Again, hard to argue with -- maybe we just don't feel like arguing today? And yet there's also the not-remote possibility that some of the academy's downsides -- the things that led City Council member Tony Avella, in whose district the academy is planned, to call it "a monstrosity that goes well beyond what is really needed" -- wind up as actual negatives. Not all local pols are opposed to the academy -- "In addition to providing an increased police presence in this community, it will create construction and permanent jobs, while increasing local business activity and growth," Queens borough president Helen Marshall says -- but it's easy enough to see why they might be, and to see why that LEED certification for the facility doesn't necessarily make it green.
With a planned 3,000 parking spaces on site, the academy has clearly been built with drivers in mind -- a good thing, since it's not really near any mass transit (which is itself a bad thing, for a host of obvious reasons). Additionally, some Queens officials are concerned that there still may not be enough parking, given that upwards of 5,000 people may be on-site at any given time. Despite the facility's efficient features -- as yet unclear, although presumably it will match the city's usual high standard -- it will likely put a strain on the area's sewage and water systems and cause plenty of traffic. The city has promised road and sewer upgrades for the neighborhood, which were integral in getting the plan past Queens' Community Board 7. But despite that forthcoming LEED plaque, and perhaps in defiance of it, the academy may not necessarily prove a green development. It could be argued -- and, again, we're not in an arguing way today -- that blue should trump green in this situation, of course. But it will be interesting to watch just how efficient the city tries to make this site now that they've succeeded in breaking ground.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 at 4:38 pm and is filed under Environment, Global Warming, efficiency, energy conservation, green, green building. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.