The Port Washington Police District’s (PWPD) bond request for its new headquarters was approved by the Town of North Hempstead board on Tuesday, July 2.
The current PWPD headquarters, located at 500 Port Washington Blvd., doesn’t meet the needs of the police district anymore, leading to the plan to construct a new headquarters. In 2023, the PWPD announced it had purchased the former Knowles Funeral Home, a prime location at 128 Main St., to build its new headquarters.
The newly approved bond, amounting to $32 million, will fund the construction of a 25,000-square-foot facility. According to the Port Washington Police District, the 30-year bond is projected to cost homeowners an average of $150.71 annually, based on the average assessed home price in Port Washington of $852,000. However, the actual cost per household will vary depending on their home’s assessed value.
The PWPD hosted two community forums and a separate forum to discuss the bond details, providing residents a platform to voice their concerns and questions. This open dialogue was crucial in shaping the decisions and ensuring the community’s needs were considered.
“The residents of this community asked some really good questions, and we were happy to provide them with comprehensive answers based on available information,” said Commissioner Sean McCarthy. “By taking a holistic approach, we can do what is needed for our officers, staff and the community we were sworn to protect.”
The Port Washington News was invited to the Port Washington Police District’s current headquarters to see the conditions and learn more about the plans for the new headquarters.
Why does the Port Washington Police District need a new headquarters?
The Port Washington Police District has outgrown its current headquarters. The building doesn’t accommodate the district’s current staff, it doesn’t support necessary technological advancements, and the parking lot cannot accommodate all of the police vehicles.
The current headquarters was built in 1958 to accommodate 35 officers and staff. Since then, the facility has undergone several renovations and expansions, and multiple third-party studies have determined that a new facility is needed.
Currently, the district has about 64 officers and 15 civilian support staffers working in the office.
The officers frequent the building to use the locker room and associated facilities, make reports and pick up supplies. They have a small break room on the lower level where they can reheat meals, but the oven and stove are not functional due to fire codes and the small size of the room.
To accommodate the support staff who work in the headquarters full and part-time, the offices have been reworked to fit multiple desks in a small space. Port Washington Police District Chief Robert Del Muro pointed out that one office on the lower level has five different desks in one small room where the detectives work.
“The problem is everyone can overhear them when they’re working and on the phone. If they interview the complainant and talk about something confidential or sensitive information, it’s too close to the others working,” said Chief Del Muro.
Some office spaces double as locker rooms for the officer who occupies them because the locker room on the lower level is already overcrowded. The male locker room isn’t big enough for the number of male officers, and there was no female locker room, so a storage closet was cleaned out and made into one to accommodate the female officers.
“Electrical wires are running through the female locker room, and the seven females who work here have to use that area. It’s tight in there,” said Chief Del Muro. “We don’t have enough lockers for everybody down here.”
There is one bathroom upstairs for civilian staff and two downstairs bathrooms, one for men and one for women. If someone is showering, the toilet cannot be used, and vice versa. While both downstairs bathrooms have showers, the bathroom must be set up for multiple people to use it simultaneously.
Former offices had to be turned into rooms for procedural tasks, such as a detective office turned into a report-writing room. Because the building was originally built in the 1950s, many technological components that are now needed aren’t easily accommodated. One small office was turned into a server room for hard drives and wiring storage.
The garage at the back of the PWPD headquarters is supposed to store and fix bikes, motorcycles, barricades, and PWPD vans. However, due to the overcrowding in the building, one-half of the garage has been used to store documents, evidence, and other items.
“When a radio or lights break, officers are supposed to bring them into the garage for maintenance. We can usually fit one car in here at a time for maintenance, but we don’t have the room to fix multiple at a time,” said Chief Del Muro. “Evidence is stored out here, and we can’t store it off-site because it needs to be manned by officers.”
While half of the garage has been altered for storage, part of it was also altered to be a makeshift locker room for the traffic safety and enforcement unit.
“There is no bathroom out here. And it’s probably most common for these officers to have a bathroom near a changing area,” said Chief Del Muro.
The officers have to do mandatory training in different areas multiple times a year, but due to the size of the building, a lot of that training is done off-site at places like the Port Washington Fire Department. When training on the rifles and handguns, the officers have to clean them before storing them again, but the armory is so tightly packed the cleaning is usually done outside.
In addition to using the fire department’s facilities for training, the PWPD parks some of its squad cars at the department. The current PWPD parking lot doesn’t hold all of the squad cars, so officers have to travel offsite to get their vehicles and park them after a shift.
“We’re completely maxed out here,” said Chief Del Muro. “The new facility will save our officers a lot of time when everything has a designated and proper location.”
What will the new headquarters have that will remedy the current situation?
The new headquarters plan is designed to be as green and sustainable as possible, with the potential to become a LEED-certified structure.
The new headquarters will provide adequate office spaces for the staff and proper locker rooms and bathroom facilities for officers. It will also feature a much-needed multi-purpose room, which will be used to host district meetings, trainings, and community meetings for small—to medium-sized gatherings.
The existing facility has had perennial issues with parking and vehicle storage. The new facility will boast ample space for headquarters parking and the storage of district vehicles and equipment.
The building will be ADA-compliant, with proper ramps for wheelchair access, wide doorways, and an elevator—all things the current headquarters lacks.
Chief Del Muro said a sally port is one of the most significant improvements to be installed at the new headquarters. A sally port is a secure, controlled entryway to an enclosure where officers can transport arrested or detained personnel into the headquarters for processing.
“The officer will get out, they’ll secure their weapons, they’ll take the prisoner out, take them in through a secure door into the processing cell area so that they’re not walking through the parking lot,” said Chief Del Muro. “Now, when we bring our prisoners in, they’re walking by civilians and staffers.”
Resident Concern
While all residents who have attended the PWPD meetings or spoke at Town of North Hempstead meetings regarding the new facility have agreed that the police district has outgrown their current headquarters, not all favor the plan.
Some residents are concerned that the new building on Main Street won’t match the appeal and aesthetics of Port’s beautiful downtown. The police district assured residents that the new building will be a two-story brick building, fitting in with the architecture on Main Street.
In addition, the parking lot for squad cars and other police vehicles will be in the back, not displayed in the front of the building. When the PWPD voted to approve the purchase of the new building, they went door to door around the new location to talk to the building’s neighbors about the plans for the new headquarters.
Chief Del Muro shared that one of the most popular questions was about what would happen with the back area.
“There will be no entrance or exits onto Webster Avenue. Our idea is that only off Mackey Avenue will be the entrance for the police and off Main Street will be the entrance for the public who may need to come in,” explained Chief Del Muro. “There will be nothing coming out or going into the property on Webster.”
Another common concern is traffic. While the size and location of the new headquarters didn’t warrant a traffic study, the PWPD ordered one anyway due to resident concerns.
“The traffic study revealed that there will be no major effect on traffic with the new headquarters on Main Street,” said Chief Del Muro. “Our police department is not a heavily trafficked building. The police officers don’t respond out of here. They relieve and respond from the street. Patrol will be coming in to hand in reports, sign things, or come in to use facilities. But routinely, when the police respond, they’re on the street.”
At the community forums hosted by the PWPD, several residents asked questions about the appraisal for the Knowles Funeral Home property and the details of the environmental assessment done through the SEQRA process. The district has posted the property appraisals and the 132-page negative declaration for the environmental review to its website for residents to review.
During the bond hearing at the Town of North Hempstead’s meeting on July 2, Councilwoman Mariann Dalimonte asked what would happen to the trees on the Main Street property during construction.
The PWPD said they intend to save as many old-growth trees as possible. A landscape architect and interested parties of residents in Port visited the site to map out the trees they would like to save and can be saved during the process.
Also, during the meeting, a resident shared that he feels the money for the new headquarters shouldn’t be going to the PWPD because they protect and serve such a small area of Port Washington.
The resident shared, “The PWPD website says they protect the villages of Baxter Estates and Port Washington North, which have about 4,175 residents. The sixth precinct of the Nassau County Police Department covers the rest. And they want to build a $30 million police station for that small number of residents.
Chief Del Muro responded, “I’m sorry, that’s very inaccurate. There may be 4,000 people in the village of Port North and Baxter Estates, but we have a large unincorporated area, Port Washington. We protect the area of 20,000 people, not counting the people who come into town, work, visit and shop.”
Construction
While the PWPD doesn’t have a concrete start date for construction due to various procedures that need to be finalized, once the building construction begins, the project is expected to take 18 months to two years to complete.
“The new headquarters is being built for our police district as it is today and for our officers 50 years in the future,” said Chief Del Muro.
To view more in-depth information about the new headquarters plan, visit portwashingtonpd.ny.gov/new-pwpd-hq/
Residents who have questions about this project or are interested in taking a tour of the existing headquarters to see for themselves the need for a new facility are encouraged to contact newhq@pwpd.ny.gov.
