$93M military facility opens in Farmingdale

The head of the New York National Guard Tuesday formally opened a $93 million Armed Forces Reserve Center that will allow state and federal military units based on Long Island to consolidate operations at a single location in Farmingdale that will help speed the mobilization of rescue troops and equipment during hurricanes or other emergencies.

Major Gen. Patrick A. Murphy, the adjutant general for the state of New York, said consolidating area military operations at the 224,000-square-foot facility will also provide better training and maintenance facilities.

Guard officials said the consolidation, which is expected to be complete sometime within the next several weeks, will also save millions in the cost of renovating and maintaining the decades-old armories spread across Long Island.

"This is all about military readiness for us," Murphy said. "We spent a lot of time at the old facilities maintaining them rather than training."

The new facility, which is southwest of Republic Airport, will house National Guard companies located at armories in Bay Shore, Huntington Station, Patchogue, Freeport and Riverhead, as well as personnel from Army and Marine Reserves centers in Uniondale and Amityville.

The new building, a modern three-story structure, houses a drill floor, training classrooms, truck maintenance garage and an auditorium complete with desktop electrical outlets for laptops.

The Reserve center will include training equipment currently unavailable on Long Island, including a rollover simulator that will allow troops to train for vehicle crashes, and a virtual-reality shooting simulator that will help prepare troops for live-fire situations.

Troops at the gated compound will store their weapons and ammunition in room-sized vaults guarded by motion detectors.

The facility also has office and recreational space available to family readiness groups. Readiness groups provide networking and emotional support to families of troops, especially while they are away at war.

Beth Delli-Pizzi, a readiness leader with the Guard's 69th Infantry Regiment, said the new building will be more welcoming to families than the old armories, which were often cold in winter and sweltering on hot summer days.

"This is really nice," Delli-Pizzi said during a tour of the air-conditioned building.

She said some troops and family leaders have expressed concern that the facility's proximity to public streets could make it vulnerable to attack.

And she said she is concerned that the relocation could end the closeness that now exists between Guard units and the communities where they are housed.

She said when Guard troops in July held a family day at the Freeport Armory, Coleman County Day Camp donated its facility across the street, complete with swimming pools, tennis courts and ballfields.

"It's going to be harder to get community leaders to come here, and it will be farther for some families to come," Delli-Pizzi said. "But bringing all the units together here, we can have one event rather than several small ones."