Riverhead 'ribbon cutting tour' downtown

Supervisor Sean Walter and his town board formed a small parade early Monday as they marched down East Main Street in Riverhead, carrying an oversized pair of scissors and stopping at a dozen businesses.

Snip. Snip, snip -- the sound was repeated at each address, a ceremonial ribbon-cutting to declare that the downtown was, finally, coming back to life.

It was a bit of a push. Walter said some of the businesses had been open for a year or more. And, two of them were not actually on Main Street.

Still, there was so much new and shiny, from the Hyatt Place hotel to the Dark Horse Restaurant, that all five town board members each got a chance to speak twice by the end.

They stopped at several spaces that had been adapted to new uses, from the Riverhead Project restaurant housed in a former bank building to The Red Collection antique and furniture consignment shop, the site of a former Ben Franklin Crafts store, and -- just off Main on Osborn Avenue -- the Off Main Market and Kitchen deli, in a former hardware store converted into a bakery.

At several stops, board members praised the vision of the entrepreneurs who had invested in downtown Riverhead, and said the town will do all it can to help them, from cutting through government red tape to making it easier to get necessary permits.

Walter also used the event to take a swipe at former Supervisor Phil Cardinale, who is running against him in November. Walter, a Republican, said the new businesses did not involve condemnation or using a master builder or a downtown urban renewal plan -- all things Cardinale, a Democrat, had proposed in an ambitious downtown redevelopment plan in 2006.

That plan called for $500 million in private investment, but fell apart three years later as the town board balked at condemning private property and as the world economy began collapsing.

Walter did allow that some of the downtown renovations had begun "before I took office."

Cardinale said every one of the projects had their roots during his time as supervisor. He maintained that the bigger issue is how to redevelop the empty blocks of stores along East Main Street.

Cardinale urged a public-private partnership, one that he said would change the face of Riverhead by allowing developers to start over.

"The best way would be to tear it down and open it [storefronts] to the river," he said.

But at a stop at the Dark Horse -- one of the oldest downtown buildings, now restored by its new owner -- Walter said tearing down the restaurant and other older buildings would destroy a part of Riverhead's heritage.