Construction begins on Bjarke Ingels-designed Bronx police station

Bjarke Ingels has a few high-profile New York City projects currently in the works—the Spiral in Hudson Yards, and the XI, the twisting hotel/condo hybrid that hugs the High Line—but the latest to break ground is slightly more humble.

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that construction has begun on the starchitect’s new building for the 40th Precinct in the Bronx, more than two years after plans for the project were first announced. The new structure, located at East 149th Street and St. Anne’s Avenue, will span 42,000 square feet, and will come with space for community events, officer training, storage, and more.

“This new precinct will strengthen the bond between community and police, which will ultimately help make the South Bronx and our city safer,” De Blasio said in a statement.

The new building’s first floor will hold the lobby, processing areas, and—in a first for a NYPD precinct—a community meeting room, which BIG says is intended to “encourage[] civic engagement with the precinct.” (As the New York Times notes in its extensive reporting on the precinct, “trust between the community and the police has declined,” so—in theory, anyway—a designated meeting space could help ameliorate that.) The second and third floors, meanwhile, will have offices, conference rooms, storage areas, and a staff lounge, among other spaces.

The project is part of the Department of Design and Construction’s Design and Construction Excellence program, which has been criticized for cost overruns and project delays. The precinct’s construction bid cost is $57.7 million; the city budgets the total cost at $68 million. It’s expected to be finished by 2021.