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Nassau missed deadline on redeveloping Grumman

County yet to give request for plan to developers

BY WILLIAM MURPHY | william.murphy@newsday.com

11:40 AM EDT, May 16, 2008

Nassau County missed its first deadline this week for redeveloping the 105-acre Grumman property in Bethpage it acquired from the U.S. Navy in early April.

A county official said the delay should be no more than one week beyond Thursday's deadline for making public the plans for the property in a Request for Proposal.

At least part of the delay was due the county's plans for a whiz-bang, interactive RFP that would allow potential developers to tour the site online, the county said.

"This RFP is not like our standard RFPs -- it is not just a word document. Instead, it is going to be an online RFP that will be interactive and contain graphics about the property," the administration of County Executive Thomas Suozzi said in a statement Friday.

The Association for a Better Long Island, representing developers, greeted the delay with the skepticism it has displayed about the county's effort to market the huge parcel.

"Any innovative effort to convince the development community that there is a rational, logical approach to marketing this property is welcome," association spokesman Gary Lewi said Friday.

County Executive Thomas Suozzi envisions a high-tech campus anchored by a defense contractor -- perhaps Northrop Grumman -- that would attract companies interested in such fields as biotechnology, homeland security and alternative energy research.

The developers' association wants more options. "It would be no surprise if they're finding an anemic response from the development community," Lewi said. "There is a lack of clarity on what will be allowed on that site."

The development group has also been critical of the divided approach taken by different levels of government, with the county selling the land for a specified use, but without any approval from the Town of Oyster Bay, which would have to make any zoning changes.

A spokeswoman for Oyster Bay Supervisor John Venditto declined to comment, saying that the RFP was entirely in the hands of the county. At a news conference with Suozzi on April 3rd Venditto had proclaimed: "We are on the same page now. Shame on us if we don't make this happen."

County Legis. Edward Mangano (R-Bethpage) said there had been some delay in working out how the Bethpage Fire Department would share about 6 acres of the site with athletic fields, but that had been almost completely worked out.

"There is a meeting of the minds with respect to the locations of the community and fire facilities," Mangano said.