Owners selling Huntington Station mixed-use building that helped kick off revitalization efforts for $9M

A Long Island development group plans to sell a Huntington Station apartment building that helped kick off the hamlet's early revitalization efforts — and transfer the property's tax breaks to the buyer.

The potential sale comes as Huntington Station's revitalization kicks into high gear, aided by a $10 million state grant awarded in 2023 to bring new apartment buildings and streetscape upgrades to the area surrounding the Long Island Rail Road station. Some of those street upgrades are set to begin this summer, Newsday reported.

An affiliate of Huntington-based Blue & Gold Homes and Huntington Station-based Renaissance Downtowns is looking to sell the market-rate building on 1046 New York Ave. for $8.95 million, according to an application filed with the Suffolk County Industrial Development Agency. The potential buyer is the limited liability company 1046 New York Avenue LLC, according to the application.

The agency last month approved the transfer of the tax breaks to the would-be-buyer, offering them a discount on their bill through 2033, IDA records show. For example, developers Blue & Gold and Renaissance saw $67,812 in tax savings in the 2024 tax year, according to the Suffolk IDA's annual report.

Neurosurgeon Kimon Bekelis, who signed IDA documents on behalf of buyer 1046 New York Ave. LLC, a subsidiary of the Bekelis Family IG Trust, said that the sale had not yet closed when reached by phone on April 9. Bekelis declined to comment further.

The New York Avenue building has 16 apartments plus ground floor retail space, according to the IDA application. Its development nearly a decade ago helped kick off the larger efforts to revitalize Huntington Station, said Ryan Porter, managing partner of Renaissance Downtowns, which owns a minority stake in the property.

"This building was the first spark in the revitalization process that has continued to occur over the last 10 years," Porter said. "There's been several other developments that have occurred since that time." 

The property was the first of a handful of new buildings constructed north of the Huntington Station LIRR stop in the hopes of fostering "the revitalization and redevelopment of downtown Huntington Station," according to an IDA project description from 2016.

The Suffolk IDA approved plans in 2016 for the three-story building on an empty lot, which was owned by the Town of Huntington at the time, according to IDA meeting minutes from that year.

Years later, Huntington Station applied to be part of the state's Downtown Revitalization Initiative in 2022, with a plan to add mixed-use buildings, parks, cross walks and trees surrounding the train station. The state accepted the application and awarded the hamlet the $10 million grant in 2023. 

The 22,500-square-foot building has a handful of retail tenants, including Renaissance Downtowns' offices and the Italian eatery Mercato Cucina.

Renaissance has no plans to relocate, Porter said. An employee at Mercato Cucina, who did not identify himself, said that the restaurant had no plans to move and hung up.