$1B College Point Police Academy…
Build it and community will believe it!

Sparky’s Deli is right across the street from the future site of the NYPD Police Academy, at College Point Boulevard and 28th Avenue. Emerging from the walk-in refrigerator, owner Mike Zamagias says, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
The deli, which is open from 4 a.m. until 4 p.m. on weekdays might extend its hours and add staff, once work begins on the academy. “It would be good for business,” Zamagias says, adding, “I might have to put in another coffee maker.”
When operational, as many as 8,000 people will be commuting there daily, according to the $1 billion-plus project unveiled by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly on Thursday, April 5 in College Point.
The new hi-tech academy will consolidate all of the instruction facilities for new police, school safety and traffic enforcement officers, as well as the continuing education of veterans, on its 30-acre campus. It will have 250 classrooms, firing ranges, indoor and outdoor tracks and a tactical training village including a simulated subway station.
Bloomberg also said that the facility would be available to police across the nation and from other countries “for a fee.” When asked if the city had any commitments from them, he told The Queens Courier, “Not yet of course, but as they say, ‘If you build it they will come.’”
Borough President Helen Marshall, who had called for the new Police Academy to be built in the borough, thanked the Mayor and Police Commissioner for their “foresight and vision” in selecting the site, saying, “The home of America’s most diverse population will be the training ground for the best police officers in the world.” Marshall added that the academy would “add to the visible police presence in the community.”
As word of the major project spreads, College Pointers are hopeful that Marshall is right, but take a wait-and-see attitude.
At Martinello’s Pizza IV at the corner of 23rd Avenue, owner Albert Martinello Sr. is also happy, saying, “It means more business, not just for me, but for everybody.”
Martinello, who lives in Howard Beach, opened at the College Point location about six months ago. “I’m a Queens guy,” he said.
Skepticism for the project increases when you travel further north in the neighborhood. “Alex,” who refused to give his last name, was behind the counter of a coffee shop near 20th Avenue, and lamented that he did not think his business would reap any benefits. “They’ll probably have a cafeteria,” he said.
College Point residents watched as the LaGuardia airport expansion killed-off plans to develop the local airfield and as the first phase of a much-touted College Point Industrial Park development failed to significantly boost local employment and the area wound up as a shopping center.
The city turned a large parcel of land into the borough NYPD tow pound and will have to find another location for all the cars before construction can begin.
In his statement during the press conference, Chair of the City Council Public Safety Committee, Astoria’s Peter Vallone Jr. said, “This is going to change from the location where beat-up old cars go to die, to where all new police officers will be created.”
Most long-time residents who were more skeptical about Bloomberg’s assertion that “It can’t help but help College Point,” refused to go on the record.
“Development has never helped us,” said a resident, explaining, “All that’s happened is impossible traffic on the big roads [College Point Boulevard, 14th and 20th Avenues] out of town.”
Howard Haider, Executive Director of the College Point Board of Trade, echoes that concern. “Of course, the Board is in favor of the Academy - with the exception of the traffic issue,” he said, adding, “the [College Point] Industrial Park has strained capacity on the local streets, and access to the area will be completely inadequate unless they do something.”