Mayor Michael Bloomberg, police commissioner Raymond Kelly and department of design and construction commissioner David Burney broke ground on the new 121st Police Precinct Station House in the Graniteville section. The station house, a $63.6 million facility, is the first new precinct on Staten Island since 1962. Major felony crime in the borough has fallen 28% over the past eight years. "The precinct headquarters will allow the NYPD to do an even better job of protecting our fastest-growing borough," said Bloomberg. "Even though the economic downturn is forcing us to cut back and stretch out a number of city capital projects, we're moving ahead now with this facility, because fighting crime is always going to be our top priority." "Crime on Staten Island is down another 17% this year. Its streets, schools and housing developments are safer, and the quality of life has improved throughout the borough. The time has come to build on that success with the creation of the 121st precinct," said Kelly. "It will relieve the workloads of our existing commands and allow us to serve the public faster and more efficiently." "New York's Finest need a state of the art facility to meet the growing needs of 21st Century policing," said Burney. "At the same time the public will find this an open welcoming place." The new precinct will be carved out of an area currently covered by the 122nd and 120th precincts on the western shore of Staten Island. The 122nd precinct is the largest in the city at 27 square miles. The 2nd largest in the city is the 123rd which is 17.5 square miles. The 4th largest precinct is the 120th which is 14.1 square miles. The new precinct station house will be a 52,827 s/f building that includes reception areas, administrative space, a detective squad, locker rooms, equipment storage, a muster room and prisoner holding cells. To correspond to the need for both public and non-public spaces, the design consists of two distinct masses which respond to the irregular site and are distinguished by differing heights and surface treatments. The design takes advantage of a natural slope in the site; the building gently arcs and gradually increases in height as it grows from one story at the high point of the site to two stories at the mid-point of the site where the grade drops and the ground floor is partially set into the terrain. The second floor then extends past the first floor toward Richmond Ave. in a cantilever, symbolically reaching out to the community while defining the building's main entrance. The building's north-south orientation on the site maximizes daylight while minimizing heat gain and so reduces energy consumption from lighting and air conditioning. The building is designed to achieve an energy cost reduction of 25%, water use reduction of 30% and includes storm water management. This project was also awarded Excellence in Design by the Public Design Commission. The building's mechanical services are concealed within the building form, integrated into an enclosure clad in the same stainless steel to keep the building height to two stories. A driveway on the north side of the building connects the main entrance on Richmond Ave. with the 110-space parking area south of the building, the driveway acts as a buffer to the residential buildings to the north and assures no shadows will be cast on the nearby residential buildings. The $63.6 million project includes $11.6 million in architectural and engineering design costs and ongoing construction management services and roughly $52 million in direct construction costs. Since 2002, the Department of Design and Construction has completed 18 renovation, modernization, and new construction projects for the NYPD, valued at $134.7 million. Currently, including the 121st Precinct, Design and Construction has seven NYPD projects in progress with a total construction value of $750 million.