Jake's 58 Casino Hotel gets the OK from Islandia Village Board to add parking lot
Jake’s 58 Casino Hotel will get nearly 800 additional parking spaces after the Islandia Village Board on Tuesday evening approved a final plan for a new lot, clearing the way for the casino to more than double its parking.
The lot will be built on 8½ acres of vacant land just west of Jake’s 58. The casino’s operator, Suffolk Regional Off-Track Betting, or OTB, bought the property from Islandia for $12.5 million in September of last year.
OTB has been vying for permission to build there for roughly a year and received preliminary approval in August, Newsday reported.
Islandia’s five-member village board unanimously approved the final plan at its Tuesday meeting for a 756-space parking lot. It represents a nearly 130% increase in parking spaces at the casino, which currently has about 600, according to Suffolk OTB president Phil Boyle.
"This much appreciated action by the Islandia Village Board will go a very long way toward enhancing the guest experience at Jake’s 58," Boyle texted Newsday after Tuesday's vote. "No longer will our patrons need to spend time searching for a parking spot."
A spokesman for the village did not immediately respond to Newsday's request for comment.
Frustration over a lack of parking has been a common concern for visitors of Jake's 58, like Manorville resident Nick Dellavalle, who goes to the casino about twice a week.
"The later you come, forget about it. The parking is terrible," he told Newsday. "Sometimes it's all backed up over ... on the service road."
Boyle said OTB now has to select a contractor to build the parking lot. Bidding for that project will open Thursday at 11 a.m. Boyle said he is "hopeful" the new lot could be completed by January or February.
The project is part of a broader parking expansion at the casino, which opened in February 2017.
OTB also has built a three-story parking garage with hundreds of additional spots, which Boyle expects will receive village permits and begin operating by mid-December. When both parking expansions are completed, Boyle said, the casino will have upward of 2,000 parking spaces in total.
Jake’s 58 is in the midst of expanding its gambling operations as well. The casino is doubling the number of betting terminals on site to 2,000, Newsday previously reported. About 1,000 of those machines will be housed in a new 110,000-square-foot facility behind the existing casino.
The gambling expansion is expected to take roughly two years, according to Boyle.
Newsday's Virginia Huie contributed to this story.
Sam Kmack covers the Town of Islip for Newsday. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California and previously worked as a city watchdog reporter in the Phoenix metro area, as well as an investigative journalist at the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting.
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