Developer revises plan for Huntington Station housing project
The Gateway Plaza project in Huntington Station will now include more two-bedroom apartments. Credit: JMB Design Group / Bill Novak
The developer of a $21 million mixed-use project in Huntington Station has revised the plan, citing the need to offset labor costs and a demand for larger apartments.
Gregory DeRosa, president of G2D Development, the lead developer on the Gateway Plaza project at 1000-1026 New York Ave., said the 61,000-square-foot building will now include 45 one-bedroom, 11 studio and 10 two-bedroom apartments.
The original plan called for 33 studio apartments and 33 one-bedroom units.
“Changing the studios and adding more one-bedrooms . . . helped supplement and offset some of the costs of the union labor” and will allow developers to charge more for the bigger apartments, DeRosa said.
Ryan Porter, co-chief executive and president of Renaissance Downtowns, the master developer leading the revitalization of Huntington Station, said demand for larger units at another Renaissance project in the hamlet spurred rethinking the Gateway project. The Northridge project at the northeast corner of Northridge Street and New York Avenue has 16 one-bedroom units.
“When we started leasing up Northridge, the broker got a lot of requests for two-bedrooms,” Porter said.
DeRosa said the change will require fewer parking spaces — 227 instead of 272 — because the size of a proposed restaurant at Gateway Plaza will be reduced from 6,000 to 3,000 square feet.He said the zoning board of appeals granted the project a variance for 128 parking spaces, including a restaurant up to 6,000 square feet, and that’s the number of parking spaces that will be built.
“The number of parking spaces isn’t changing, but the demand will now go down because of the reduction in space needed for a restaurant,” DeRosa said. “Even if we put in a restaurant at all.”
Town Supervisor Chad Lupinacci said town officials will take another look at the original plans and renderings.
“I think whenever you deviate from a plan even though the size and scope of the plan is still the same but some of the conditions are different, it’s something we want to look into,” Lupinacci said.
The town board on April 10 voted to transfer 1000 New York Ave. to Renaissance Downtowns at Huntington Station as part of a 2011 agreement to revitalize the area.
Town spokeswoman Lauren Lembo said it’s not clear if the changes in the composition of apartments will affect the property transfer.
“The land transfer was approved based on a different set of plans,” Lembo said in an email. “This document was received by the planning department last week on April 24, two weeks after the land transfer was approved, and it has not yet been reviewed by Town staff to determine next steps.”
On April 26, JDJ Gateway JV LLC received the Suffolk County IDA’s preliminary approval for $2.6 million in tax breaks over 15 years for the Gateway project.
Uniondale-based RXR Realty is Renaissance’s partner in redeveloping Huntington Station. Huntington-based JDJ Gateway JV LLC is also a partner in the Gateway project.
Updated now Newsday travel writer Scott Vogel took the ferry over to Block Island for a weekend of fun.
Updated now Newsday travel writer Scott Vogel took the ferry over to Block Island for a weekend of fun.
