59.0°,
Mostly Cloudy $13 million allotted for new precinct
Plan includes police station and privately funded heritage center
The roller coaster saga of Baldwin’s 1st Precinct has crested again, this time with the announcement of a new $13 million building, to be constructed on the parking lot of the existing structure.
A decade of proposing and re-proposing various visions for revamping the precinct has included everything from moving the facility to shutting it down or reducing its size. The current idea, announced last week by County Executive Ed Mangano, is to build a new 25,000-square-foot, fully staffed station house in Baldwin, and to turn the Kellogg house — the historic home that was, until recently, slated for demolition to make room for the new police building — into a community center. (Funding for the center would come from Baldwin groups through grants and other private means.)
The new plan goes against an idea the county spent much of last year promoting — that station houses are largely outdated because officers do most of their work in their patrol cars. Police officials made a tour of community groups and civic meetings, explaining that the 1st Precinct could be merged with Seaford’s 7th Precinct without affecting public safety. The mergers were to save the county around $20 million, with the elimination of around 100 desk jobs.
The number of precinct houses in Nassau County was indeed reduced from eight to five, but when the Seaford station flooded last October during Hurricane Sandy, the county reconsidered its decision to shutter the Baldwin building. The county would borrow money to help fund the new projects, and construction bids were due on Tuesday. Mangano said he would present the best plan to the Legislature on Sept. 23, and construction is tentatively scheduled to begin next month.
According to county spokesman Brian Nevin, there would be “four prime contractors — general construction, plumbing, electrical and mechanical.” Nevin said that the entire project would be run by the construction managements firm HAKS.
The opening of the new precinct is tentatively slated for March 2015.
