Apartments, retail planned at former NY Sports Club in Great Neck Plaza

A local developer wants to replace the former New York Sports Club in Great Neck Plaza with a smaller apartment and retail building — after officials and village residents critiqued its plans for a larger property.

JS Barstow plans to demolish the gym and medical office buildings and construct a 55-unit apartment building in their place, according to the developer’s draft environmental impact statement filed with the Village of Great Neck Plaza.

The latest proposal — currently undergoing the state’s environmental review process — comes after the developer scaled back previous plans for a taller apartment building at the former gym and six years after New York Sports Club’s parent company filed for bankruptcy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2023, the developer planned to construct a taller building on the lot — bounded by Barstow Road, Linden Place, Canterbury Road and the Long Island Rail Road — but reduced the building’s height in response to feedback from village officials and the public, according to the draft environmental impact statement.

If constructed, the building would sit on a sloped hill — from Linden Place, renderings show the property rising three stories. From Barstow Road at the lower end of the slope, the building would feature ground-floor retail space and a parking garage, with three residential stories rising above the commercial space, according to renderings included in the draft environmental impact statement.

But the building’s height, and potential impacts on neighborhood traffic, remain a point of concern for the village board of trustees, said Richard Gabriele, the village’s attorney.

The board is scheduled to review the revised draft environmental impact statement in December, and the developer will need to secure approvals from the zoning board and village board of trustees after the environmental review is completed, Gabriele said.

Those approvals could take until the summer to wrap up, he added.

Village of Great Neck Plaza Mayor Ted Rosen said he couldn’t say whether the project would be approved, but that the village’s “careful review” is crucial to “smart, responsible development.”

“We appreciate the opportunity to do responsible development to increase the housing stock, but we are very mindful of the potential impacts: traffic volume, the increased demands on water resources, sewage, and all of that,” Rosen said.

The property sits on a corner bounded by apartment and office buildings, just over a mile from the under-construction 64-unit apartment building at 263-267 E. Shore Rd. in nearby Kings Point, Newsday has reported.

Jacob Shirian, listed as the applicant for JS Barstow and a project development manager at Great Neck-based developer Lions Group, did not respond to requests for comment on the plans. JS Barstow owns the building with three other limited liability companies, including one that shares an address with Great Neck Plaza-based real estate investment firm SMA Equities, according to property and tax records.

Town Sports International, the parent company of New York Sports Club, filed for bankruptcy in 2020 and sold off its assets, according to a news release from New York State Attorney Letitia James. It’s unclear when the Great Neck Plaza location closed. New York Sports Club did not respond to a request for comment through the company’s website.