The Bloomberg administration has announced plans to consolidate the New York City Police Academy on a new campus in College Point, Queens at the present site of the city’s largest auto pound. The new campus will occupy a lot bounded by College Point Boulevard, 28th Avenue, 31st Avenue, and Ulmer Street in a largely industrial area near Shea Stadium.
The yet to be designed complex will include an elaborate firing range, 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.
The administration has allocated $1 billion in the capital budget for the campus and expects construction to begin in the fall of 2009, after the completion of the city’s land-use review process. When completed, the complex will replace the crumbling Academy on East 20th Street, between Second and Third Avenues, the firing range at Rodman’s Neck in the Bronx, and the vehicle training facility at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn.
In May of 2008, city officials selected Perkins+Will and Michael Fieldman Architects to design the new facility. The team of architecture firms are working with officials from both the New York Police Department and the city’s Department of Design and Construction in designing the plans.
Public review of the project started in May 2009. The project is currently being reviewed by Queens Community Board 7 as part of the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP).