City could have avoided police academy gym floor flop

A respected construction consultant warned that the high-tech, million-dollar gym floor being built for the new Police Academy was doomed to buckle but he was ignored, The Post has learned.

The revelation surfaced as the city prepares to rip up and replace the botched polyurethane floor at an extra cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I saw the story in The Post, and I said, Holy moly! I consulted on this thing! said flooring expert Janos Spitzer, referring to the papers exclusive report on the floor fiasco earlier this month.

Sources had told The Post that the flooring at the new Queens facility was buckling because of the citys cost-saving decision to forgo installing a protective vapor barrier under its plywood base.

In January, a sub-contractor hired Manhattan-based Janos P. Spitzer Flooring Consultants, Inc. to evaluate work on the 45,000-square-foot floor.

On Jan. 24, Spitzer inspected the in-progress construction and found subfloor assembly, too springy and too damp for the polyurethane surface being planned, he wrote in a report.

The city Department of Design and Construction, which is overseeing the project, countered in a statement, The subfloor is absolutely usable ... Additionally, an analysis by DDC has found that the subfloor performed, and continues to perform, as designed.

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City could have avoided police academy gym floor flop