KPPC Today
Today, the sprawling area that once housed the Kings Park Psychiatric Center stands as a testament to a forgotten era. In the spring of 2000, the waterfront portion of the former campus was reopened as the Nissequogue River State Park, protecting it from development. The former rail spur, abandoned in the late 1980s, was converted into part of a hike-bike trail in 2003. Pilgrim Psychiatric Center, which took the remaining patients from Kings Park, runs three group homes on the grounds.
Since 1996, several proposals regarding the property have come and gone, and numerous developers have attempted to purchase the grounds from New York State. The development proposals have proven to be highly controversial as the former campus contains numerous obstacles to development. The greatest obstacles are several buildings that were demolished into their basements and buried while the hospital was still operating. Asbestos in these buildings was never properly abated. Other areas include buried ash containing unknown materials from the hospital's power generation facilities and asbestos in steam tunnels and remaining buildings. These problems created a fear in the surrounding community that developers will have no choice but to build high-density housing to offset the environmental clean-up costs and return a profit.
In January 2006, New York State aborted the sale of the property. Outgoing parks commissioner Bernadette Castro persuaded other state officials to transfer most of the hospital property to her agency. The plan called for 368 acres (1.49 km2) to be added to Nissequogue River State Park. This also occurred in 2006 and approximately ninety percent of the campus is now part of the park. Part of the plan also included the demolition of 15 particularly dilapidated buildings, as well as unused access roads. Demolition work on the 15 officially condemned buildings, originally scheduled to begin in May 2012, was pushed back to July.
On August 13th, 2012, demolition of Building 123 (Group 2) had begun.
On August 14th, 2012, demolition of cafe 56 had begun, and has been demolished.
In January 2009, officials announced that pets are no longer allowed on the former grounds of KPPC and NY State officials agreed on a new plan for the former Kings Park Psychiatric Center property that they called the most significant step in years toward getting the long-stalled redevelopment process under way.
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