Builders: no plans to expand Glen Isle

The market may support adding several hundred more housing units to Glen Cove's ambitious waterfront redevelopment, but its builders said they have no immediate plans to do so.

RXR-Glen Isle Partners, the development team funding the billion-dollar project, presented a market analysis to the city planning board Tuesday. It touted an economic forecast that would allow an increase to the 860 condominiums and apartments now approved -- possibly up to 1,100.

While that may have raised eyebrows, a development partner said the study was meant only to give officials comfort as to the plan's viability. "It has absolutely nothing to do with our application," Mitchell Hochberg, managing director of RXR Realty, said Thursday. "Our application is still for the 860 units, plus a hotel."

Last month, developers unveiled their latest conceptual site plan: 860 residential units among 50,000 square feet of office space, 25,000 square feet of retail and restaurants, a hotel, and 19 acres of open space. The project, dubbed Glen Isle, would be built on more than 50 acres of city-owned former industrial sites along Glen Cove Creek.

If a final environmental-impact statement is approved by fall, a first phase of affordable town homes and rentals could break ground next year. It will take seven to 10 years after that to complete the project.

Part of the conceptual site plan, approved by Glen Cove's community and industrial development agencies, calls for RXR-Glen Isle to reduce heights of most project buildings, from 10 and 12 stories to four and five. They retained the right to return to those heights, approved in a 2008 plan, if the economy supports it, and to adjust the breakdown of rental-versus-sale properties.

Mayor Ralph Suozzi, who pushed for the scaled-down plan, said the developer would need approval from community development and industrial development agencies should they wish to exceed 860 residential units, plus 125 from the hotel.

"This is part of a normal process," he said of the marketing analysis. "They're doing the right thing by doing all these studies and providing current, valid information on the economic conditions."