Taubman returns to push Syosset mall plan

You can say this much for Minneapolis-based Taubman Centers Inc: It hasn't given up its more-than-a-decade-old efforts to build an upscale mall on the old Cerro Wire property in Syosset.

Taubman executives, led by chief operating officer Bill Taubman, are on Long Island again, making the rounds of business organizations to see if a "consensus" can be reached to build a mall on the 39-acre property off the Long Island Expressway. Bill Taubman said the company has not formally filed any papers to start the process going again. But at some point it might.

There's a new wrinkle: The economy is so bad that officials in Oyster Bay town, which has repeatedly said no to the mall, may not be able to say no to millions of dollars of tax revenues, new jobs and business, Taubman said.

"I'm here with a checkbook," Taubman said under a broiling sun at the site earlier this week. "I'm here to create jobs in this economy. I'm about reality."

Taubman met this week with Long Island Association president Kevin Law and Association for a Better Long Island executive director Desmond Ryan. "I found them to be very impressive," Law said.

Taubman said he is not willing to scale back his original proposal, which calls for a 750,000-square-foot mall populated by such upscale retailers as Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus.

But resistance seems the same. "I think in the last 15 years the dialogue has been pretty much exhausted on that particular proposal," said Oyster Bay town spokesman Jim Moriarty. He said the town would be open to hearing about "alternate" proposals.

Two years ago the state Court of Appeals -- the state's highest court -- denied Taubman's request to appeal a lower-court ruling that sent the company's plans back to the beginning of the town's approval process. Civic organizations remain unconvinced.

Taubman's "trying to shove it down our throat," said Todd Fabricante, chairman of the Cerro Wire Coalition, which represents 32 civic, business and community groups in the town. "He hasn't learned yet."

Taubman thinks things are changing. "Over the last couple of months a number of people in the community have turned to us," Taubman said. "Nassau County is broke. It's time to test the waters here."