Sinking floors, cracks in the sheetrock and doors that don’t close. Those are the conditions at the Town of Poughkeepsie Police Department that News 12 saw firsthand Thursday that has officials looking for a new building.
“You can see the floor comes down and the walls are pulling from it,” said Police Chief Joseph Cavaliere.
Cavaliere says the building, which also houses the Poughkeepsie Town Court and the Parks Department, was built decades ago on an old landfill. He says engineers determined the building is sinking.
Officials say the problem would cause millions of dollars to fix and that they are instead looking for a new building for police and court operations.
“Financially, it’s a waste of taxpayers' money to continue to repair this building and bring it up,” said Cavaliere. “This building was never intended to be a police station. It doesn’t meet the standards of a police department.”
Officials say they are actively looking at about a dozen different properties and that there’s already several prospective buyers for the old police building, which used to be a warehouse.