Riverhead to buy downtown property for $20 million to create new Town Hall

Riverhead Town will buy Peconic Bay Medical Center’s downtown Robert Entenmann Campus to use as a new town hall, municipal and hospital officials said Wednesday. 

In a deal town Councilman Tim Hubbard said will close by fall, the town will pay $20 million. Bond issues approved this week by the council will fund the purchase and up to $1.5 million in renovations.   

Four buildings on West Second Street and Griffing Avenue are part of the deal. Its centerpiece is the 29,605-square-foot PBMC administration building at 4 West Second St. that will house more than a dozen departments, a public meeting room and offices for the town council and supervisor. 

"This is absolutely the most viable approach," one that will dovetail with development of a nearby town square and purchase of 200 parking spots, Supervisor Yvette Aguiar said.

The deal will more than double the space available to staffers working in the current Town Hall, a 15,476-square-foot structure at 200 Howell Ave. built in 1974. It will also free up space for the town’s Justice Court, which will move into the vacated Town Hall from a building shared with town police. 

Seven clerks, two judges, two Legal Aid attorneys, a court reporter, an interpreter and three court officers now work 100 cases a day in a facility not much larger than the typical New York City apartment, with some extra space afforded by trailers behind the building. 

Working conditions are “pretty terrible,” court director Sarah Burgess said, with records spread out at various town buildings.  

“We probably outgrew the space 20 years ago,” she said. The purchase is “great news if it works.”

Riverhead officials have tried for years to expand municipal offices, but “there were always glitches,” Hubbard said. “This is the fastest way we can get Justice Court into an appropriate site.” 

Town leaders prepared an offer for the PBMC campus when the property became available about two months ago, Hubbard said. As recently as three months ago, they considered building at the current Howell Avenue site but were dissuaded by the high cost of materials and lengthened delivery times.

According to records, PBMC bought its downtown buildings in 2017 from People’s United Bank for $11,470,000.

After closing, Riverhead will become a landlord to the People’s United bank on the corner of West Second Street and Roanoke Avenue. The bank has a lease that will not expire for years and at least one 10-year option to extend, Hubbard said. 

The town will also take over a two-story building on Griffing Avenue and may lease it to PBMC, Hubbard said. 

The fate of an unoccupied historic house at 214 Griffing Ave. included in the deal is unclear. Town officials plan to keep it but must inspect for asbestos, Hubbard said.  

Rental income and possible sale of another town building will offset the cost of the move to taxpayers, Aguiar said. 

PBMC executive director Amy Loeb said the hospital will invest sale proceeds in clinical work and may move administrators into the former McGann-Mercy Diocesan High School, bought from the Diocese of Rockville Centre in 2021.  
The hospital will talk with family of bakery magnate Robert Entenmann to find another way to honor him, she said. The hospital named its campus for Entenmann in 2018 after a family foundation gave $5 million to its cardiac care campaign.