Farmingdale wants to revitalize downtown

Farmingdale, like other older Long Island downtowns, struggles with empty stores, a mishmash of architectural styles and signs, and a lack of nighttime activity.

But village officials are moving aggressively to turn the business district around through a variety of initiatives, largely funded by grants.

The first steps have been small, but noticeable.

Farmingdale has recently replaced cracked sidewalks, installed antique-style energy-saving streetlights, solved drainage problems and started renovating more than 20 Main Street business façades. The village green will soon get a makeover, and a Hilton extended-stay hotel and adjacent park are planned near the Long Island Rail Road station.

"We have been dying a slow death for the last 20 or 30 years and it's time to change -- with public input," Mayor George Starkie said. "We don't have a vibrant business district and not enough people on foot. We don't have housing for our young people."

Farmingdale Chamber of Commerce President Debbie Poldolski supports creating a combination of commercial and residential space.

"To have mixed-use development there would be phenomenal . . . so people would be able to walk around the train station and Main Street area and find everything they need without owning a car," she said.

But the village vision for downtown has raised questions about density, building height, traffic and parking. "I'm seeing terrible traffic," resident JoAnn Russo told the board at a hearing on the hotel last Monday.

Starkie told her the village is planning to add left-turn lanes on Main Street to address traffic concerns.

Lorraine Pieloch, a 45-year resident shopping on Main Street recently, supported the plan. "The village needs a revival," she said. "A lot of the things they are doing are paid for by grants, which is good news for the taxpayers. New merchants are coming in and some of them are hanging new signs, so it's looking better."

Starkie said the project began to take shape in 2006 with a "visioning process" for 60 acres downtown conducted by Eric Alexander of the planning group Vision Long Island. Since then the village obtained grants to revise its master plan from the late 1980s and update the village code to, among other things, again allow people to live above stores.

Starkie expects to hold a hearing this summer on the changes.

To allow construction of the 85-room, 40-foot-tall hotel -- the first in years in a village that had six in the 1800s -- officials are creating a land swap with developer Bartone Properties. The village is giving up 23 parking spaces on 4,000 square feet and the developer is donating a 5,400-square-foot area in front of the hotel to the village to create a park.

Farmingdale Downtown Redevelopment will include

Office space

Retail

Residential

Hotel

Park

Small steps already taken include

Replacing cracked sidewalks

Installing new street lights

Correcting drainage problems

Renovating business facades