New NYPD Precinct For Queens Takes Step Closer To Reality

ROSEDALE, QUEENS -- Bess DeBetham can trace back the fight for a new police precinct in her Southeast Queens neighborhood for decades - Literally, she has the newspaper clippings to prove it.

For years - since July 1977, to be exact - DeBetham read about politicians promising to add a 116th precinct to ease the burden on Precinct 105, NYPD's fifth largest command in the city.

As she viewed renderings of the new precinct inside the Queens Borough President's Conference room, it finally felt within reach.

"It has been a long, long journey, and today we're a little bit closer in the process being here to get a 'yes' recommendation," said DeBetham, treasurer of the Federated Blocks of Laurelton, a group dedicated to improving the Southeast Queens neighborhood.

The NYPD's new $70 million station is slated to go up in Rosedale at 242-40 North Conduit Ave. near the neighborhood's Long Island Rail Road station, said Philip Heller, the NYPD's director of capital projects. It will take over the southern half of Precinct 105's territory, patrolling Laurelton, Rosedale, Cambria Heights and Springfield Gardens.

Advocates have long argued the additional precinct is necessary for better policing in Southeast Queens, where emergency response times are estimated to be nearly two minutes longer than that of the citywide average.

Heller, who won Community Board 13's approval for the zoning changes needed to build the 45,000-square-foot quarters, presented the blueprints to the Queens Borough Board in a public hearing on Thursday for the next seal of approval.

The two-story precinct, whose early drafts show a modern design featuring bullet-proof glass walls, would be built over the 105th Precinct's satellite location, he said. It will house roughly 400 employees - civilian and uniformed - in three rotating shifts. The new site will take over a total of 163 parking spaces from DOT lots.

Among the most notable details in the precinct's early rendering was an 800-square-foot community room that will have its own entrance separate from the precinct. The room's exact functions are still up in the air, but the NYPD envisions it as a sort of jointly-owned space for local organizations to use and gather in a they please, Heller said.

"The idea would be to diffuse community-police relations by giving you a less formal, law-enforcement reason to come to the precinct," Heller said. "We want to make it an easier place to come to."

While modern police precincts can take up to seven years to build, Heller said the pressure is on to erect this one is nearly half the time.

"There's a strong push to get this done as quick as possible - quicker than we ever have in the past," he said.

Schematic designs for the building, which began in October, are expected to be finished by early 2019. Construction would then start by late 2019, with the goal of having Precinct 116 up and running by April 2022.

Though that means Southeast Queens neighborhoods won't see a new precinct for another four years at best, the wait doesn't feel all that long for Deputy Queens Borough President Melva Miller.

"Since I was born, I remember talks about a new precinct in Laurelton," Miller said. "To see it come to fruition is amazing to me."

Lead photo by Danielle Woodward/Patch

Caption: Philip Heller, director of capital projects for the NYPD, present an early rendering of Precinct 116 in a public hearing with Queens Borough Board to gain its approval of zoning changes required for the new command in Rosedale.