LI developer to get award for work -- in Poland

The Association for a Better Long Island, which represents developers, plans to give its Long Island Developer of the Year Award to Polimeni International of Garden City for work Polimeni has done -- in Poland!

No joke! Well, sort of, no joke.

Hauppauge-based ABLI said that it decided on the award "after a thorough and lengthy review of development activity across the bi-county region, along with a survey of real estate executives and analysis of local municipal approvals."

The short version: There's damn little going on here in the way of development, ABLI says.

"Simply put, there was no Long Island development activity worthy of an award that was approved by a local township during the last year," said ABLI executive director Desmond Ryan. He said the association had to look several thousand miles to the east "to find anything of note accomplished by a Long Island-based developer."

But there is a serious side to all this. "We're trying to drive home the fact that we can't get anything done on Long Island," Ryan said. He ticked off a number of projects that have died or are lying undone, including the Lighthouse in downtown Nassau, the AvalonBay apartments in Huntington Station and the Heartland Town Square, a massive apartment/retail/office complex planned on the grounds of the former Pilgrim State Hospital in Brentwood. The Heartland has been before Islip Town officials for the last few years.

Ryan was reminded that Canon Inc., the giant image-making company, is building a huge complex in Melville, and that AvalonBay just last week submitted a scaled-down proposal for Huntington Station. But Ryan said the Canon project has taken a decade to get off the ground, and "there's no guarantee" that even a smaller AvalonBay will be approved.

Vincent Polimeni, chief executive of Polimeni International, said he has built eight shopping centers across Poland in the last 10 years and has seven more building projects in the planning stages. On Long Island, Polimeni said, he has one project planned, a condo in Mineola that has taken a decade of wrangling with municipalities to gain approval.

"There's a handful of very aggressive and outspoken people here who don't want to see anything built," Polimeni said.

Polimeni will receive his award at the Carlyle on the Green in Bethpage April 7. And perhaps just to drive the point home, on hand will be Poland's deputy counsel general, Mark Skulimowski.