The New Hyde Park Police Athletic League Clubhouse is still hoping to receive the $200,000 state grant promised in the wake of two floods that caused cracks in its gymnasium floor and disrupted its athletic programs during the past five years.
The $200,000 was among the grants secured by former state Sen. Craig Johnson and withdrawn by the Democratic state Senate leadership last December after Johnson lost his re-election bid in the 7th state Senate district to Republican challenger Jack Martins, according to Nassau County Police officer Kevin Worth, director of the New Hyde Park PAL program.
“The state grant was supposed to be coming, but then it was held up,” said Worth.
Worth said the $200,000 was part of the $1.3 million in grants pledged to the Town of North Hempstead and a major piece of the funding he put together to put the PAL center on Denton Avenue back together.
In the past two years, the New Hyde Park PAL received a $100,000 grant from the county through Nassau County Legislator Richard Nicolello. But the biggest portion of the reconstruction money was the $200,000 that never arrived.
“Most of that was state money, so it was pivotal,” Worth said.
He said Town of North Hempstead Supervisor Jon Kaiman has been supportive of PAL’s efforts to restore the gym. The town owns the property the PAL facility occupies and has already approved plans for the renovations.
Worth said Cashin & Associates, PAL’s engineering company, estimated interior and exterior repairs at between $400,000 and $600,000.
Worth recently met with Martins to disuss the grant. Martins said he is hopeful about getting the grant restored.
Problems with the PAL clubhouse started with flooding after a heavy rainstorm in October 2005, when overflow from a sump behind the facility inundated the parking lot adjacent to it with three feet of water, Worth said. The water flowed under the eight-inch concrete block supporting the gym floor, cracking the concrete and the gym floor.
The gym floor was restored with $135,000 from an insurance claim filed at the time. But Worth said the repair work wasn’t sufficient to withstand another major rainstorm in July 2007.
The sump overflowed again during the storm and the accumulation of water in the parking lot flowed under the concrete floor, leaving one of three basketball courts in the gym badly buckled and cracked and covered the entire surface of the gym with mud and water.
“That was literally one half-hour before camp started that day,” Worth said.
Worth said much of the $135,000 received from insurance coverage after the second flood has gone to basic upkeep and to pay staff. Worth said he and workers at the facility cleaned up the gym as best they could and resumed scaled-down athletic programs last fall.
Before the flood, 500 local grade schoolers and teenagers were participating in basketball, baseball, lacrosse and karate at the center, according to Worth. The gym is echoing with the sound of children playing once again, but only 150 are registered for the summer camp currently underway.
Before the gym was reopened, Worth said the New Hyde Park PAL programs were relocated to the New Hyde Park Baptist Church. But that meant a reduction in revenues from birthday parties and rentals of the facility for other events that were a major source of income to cover the cost of operations.
“This building was in use year all year round,” Worth said.
Replacement of the concrete under the gym floor will cost an estimated $273,000, with a new gym floor expected to cost $100,000, Worth said. Exterior work to regrade the parking lot, pave it and construct a trench that will redirect water into the sump will cost between $152,000 and $170,000. The engineering firm’s fee for the work would be $75,000.
What was a self-supporting operation now needs the grant it lost from the state or a major infusion of funds from some other source to fully revive itself.
“For the first time we need help and we feel a little weird having to ask,” Worth said.
