LIBOR will move into this office building at 1305 Walt...

LIBOR will move into this office building at 1305 Walt Whitman Rd. in Melville in the summer. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca

The Long Island Board of Realtors plans to move its headquarters from West Babylon to Melville this summer in hopes of cultivating a modern space with "a hometown feel" for its roughly 28,000 members, according to the association's CEO.

LIBOR sold its West Babylon buildings — 300 and 346 Sunrise Highway — in 2024 and will retain its service centers in Woodbury, Riverhead and Jackson Heights, Queens, CEO Doreen Spagnuolo said. The association is leasing 300 Sunrise Hwy. until the move, she added.

Spagnuolo hopes LIBOR, a trade organization that offers education and resources to real estate agents, will move in by mid-summer, she said. LIBOR declined to say what the association is spending on the lease.

The relocation is the product of a 1½-year search for an office space in a central location with ample parking, Spagnuolo said. Of the roughly 100 parking spaces in the lot at the new site, 1305 Walt Whitman Rd., 10 will be reserved for LIBOR, according to building's landlord.

"It’s just time to look ahead and get something a little more modern and equipped with the latest technology so we could offer different benefits and services to the members," Spagnuolo said

Currently, the space is "a blank slate," she said.

The lease comes as data shows office vacancy rates in the area are inching lower.

In 2020, a pandemic-induced rise of remote work influenced the demand for office space. "Traditional office tenants" in non-medical spaces began "shedding space" in 2020 and continued until 2024, said Mateusz Wnek, associate director of market analytics, New York, for CoStar.

Based on CoStar Group data, the current average office vacancy rate in western Suffolk is 9.3%, according to Wnek.

"Additionally, the current rate is right around the 10-year average of 9.5%," Wnek said in an email.

In Melville, the office vacancy rate is 10.7%, Wnek said, a decrease from last year's 12.4% vacancy rate, as well as from a "post-pandemic peak of 14.2%" in the fourth quarter of 2023. 

Based on preliminary Moody's Analytics Inc. data for the fourth quarter of 2024 in its western Suffolk submarket, which covers roughly the same area, the vacancy rate for the area is 13.9%, according to associate data scientist Ricardo Rosas.

Spagnuolo envisions a lobby with a coffee station where members can network and socialize, she said. The facility will include a podcast room, classrooms and conference rooms, she added. Construction is expected to take three to six months.

The Feil Organization, a Manhattan-based real estate company owned by a family with roots in Rockville Centre, is the landlord and will finance the construction.

"I had to move some pieces around, but ultimately, I had an excellent piece of space on the third floor of 1305 that I identified as a good fit for LIBOR," said Tim Parlante, director of leasing for The Feil Organization.

Parlante arranged to move current tenant Medigap Life LLC to a different part of the third floor and combine Medigap's area with additional vacant space to accommodate LIBOR.

Medigap, a company that sells health insurance products, will remain on the third floor and move into a 6,735-square-foot space, according to The Feil Organization. Some 50 people work in the Melville office, said Medigap founder and CEO Vincent Cortazar. The company also has offices in Boca Raton, Florida, and Charlotte, North Carolina.

"Overall, we're happy with the building management, the attentiveness of the building management; they recently made some pretty significant upgrades to the building," said Cortazar, a Dix Hills native.

The building, located a block from the Long Island Expressway, has a full-service cafeteria that provides catering to tenants' spaces and private parties, a conference center and a gym with locker rooms and showers, Parlante said.

Other tenants of 1305 Walt Whitman include the accounting and advisory firms KPMG and CohenReznick, finance broker Lendio and the North American Partners in Anesthesia.

From Love Lane in Mattituck, NewsdayTV's Elisa DiStefano and Newsday deputy lifestyle editor Meghan Giannotta have your look at ways to celebrate Valentine's Day this year. Credit: Randee Daddona, Gary Licker; Newsday / A.J. Singh

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From Love Lane in Mattituck, NewsdayTV's Elisa DiStefano and Newsday deputy lifestyle editor Meghan Giannotta have your look at ways to celebrate Valentine's Day this year. Credit: Randee Daddona, Gary Licker; Newsday / A.J. Singh

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