Developer seeks Brookhaven Town rezoning to add 1.7 million-square-foot distribution center in Yaphank

A Kansas City, Missouri, development company is asking Brookhaven officials to rezone almost 40 acres of land at a Yaphank industrial complex for a 1.7 million-square-foot distribution center that would be among the largest on Long Island.

The $205.8 million complex, slated to be called Suffolk Business Park, would include seven buildings, each comprising more than 200,000 square feet of space, in a trapezoid-shaped industrial area south of the Long Island Expressway between it, Horseblock and Sills roads and Yaphank Avenue.

Details of the project, including potential tenants, were not disclosed during a March 26 public hearing at Brookhaven Town Hall in Farmingville.

Construction would occur through 2033 in multiple phases if tenants have agreed to occupy buildings there, said Andrew Villari, development manager of NorthPoint Development, the property's Kansas City-based owner. 

NorthPoint Development, through subsidiary Brookhaven Logistics Center LLC, is asking the town to change the zoning of a 38.9-acre parcel that currently is zoned for single-family homes. The parcel is part of a 228-acre property where Suffolk Business Park would be built, the company said in papers filed with the town. 

Over 70 acres, or nearly 33% of the 228-acre parcel, would be preserved as open space, the company said.

The town board reserved decision on the zoning request and did not schedule a vote.

Suffolk Business Park would join two neighboring projects, also owned by NorthPoint Development, including a freight terminal connected to a 3.4-mile rail spur and the proposed 999,000-square-foot Long Island Rail Terminal distribution center. NorthPoint also is building a $157 million, 414,000-square-foot Home Depot warehouse at the industrial park.

At 1.7 million square feet, Suffolk Business Park would dwarf even the largest Long Island distribution centers built in recent years or under construction, such as the Trader Joe's complex in Islandia (922,084 square feet) and Melville's Mid-Island Logistics Center (940,000 square feet).

For comparison, the recently expanded American Airlines terminal at Kennedy Airport has about 1.6 million square feet.

Gauging the demand

The Yaphank plan faced no explicit opposition from residents or town officials at the March 26 hearing. But Councilman Michael Loguercio expressed skepticism that the warehouses would find occupants.

"We have so many vacant warehouse spaces that I don't understand how you're going to attract a tenant," he said.

Villari said it can take years to fill warehouse space. But he said the company is confident the complex will find tenants because Long Island's “[economic] fundamentals are very strong,” with household incomes above the national average.

“We wouldn’t build it if we didn’t know what was going there,” Villari said, adding nothing would be built until tenants agree to sign leases. “It really just depends on market conditions … but we’d love to bring someone here and build that building.”

Newsday has previously reported at least 56 warehouse projects comprising 18 million square feet of space have been proposed on Long Island in recent years.

Thomas DeLuca, a managing director of Manhattan real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield, who specializes in Long Island's warehouse market, agreed that the Yaphank project will find plenty of interest.

“The market is definitely still in need of more of it, even with the 5 million square feet [of warehouse space] delivered in the last five years,” DeLuca said last week in a telephone interview. "What is being perceived as vacancies in the market, five years from now that narrative will change.”

Once Brookhaven Rail Terminal property

The Suffolk Business Park proposal is the latest development at a sprawling industrial site that, under its former owner, Brookhaven Rail Terminal, had a history of lawsuits and environmental conservation law violations stretching back almost two decades.

In 2015, Brookhaven Rail Terminal was fined a minimum of $150,000 by the state Department of Environmental Conservation for illegal dumping and unauthorized sand mining. 

The company sold the 228-acre site in 2024 to NorthPoint Development as part of a complex agreement in which West Babylon trash hauler Winters Bros. Waste Systems agreed to drop plans for a waste transfer station at the site. As part of the deal, NorthPoint announced it would build the warehouse complex to replace the waste station.

The agreement was reached with the Brookhaven and state chapters of NAACP, local residents and Farmingdale nonprofit Citizens Campaign for the Environment, which had sued the town to block the trash processing facility. A state Supreme Court judge had dismissed the lawsuit months before Winters Bros. canceled its plans.

Supervisor Dan Panico expressed frustration at the March 26 hearing that the warehouses would generate additional truck traffic in the area.

Villari said the complex would add about 34 trucks per hour at peak times on Horseblock Road, or about one truck every two minutes.

Noting that the Winters Bros. facility would have been served by a commercial rail spur, potentially reducing the impact on local roads, Panico said the warehouses "instead will be served by trucks." 

Yaphank Civic Association president Chad Trusnovec, the only resident to speak at the hearing, said he had "many, many concerns" about the NorthPoint project, including traffic, noise and pollution.

"If it goes through to its fruition complete, it will change the landscape forever. This is not something you come back from," Trusnovec told the town board, adding he was not for or against the zoning change.

"Absolutely the biggest concern that I hear every single day in my town [is], 'What about us?' " Trusnovec added. " 'When is it that the town of Yaphank is going to get something in return?' "