Suffolk officials tour EPCAL property, with future in mind

TIM GANNON PHOTO
The abandoned rail spur that connects to the Long Island Rail
Road tracks at the Enterprise Park in Calverton. Work on
restoring the spur for freight access into the park is set to
start Friday.

The Suffolk County Planning Commission toured the Calverton Enterprise Park Thursday morning, getting a chance to see some of the land they will ultimately have to make recommendations on when the Riverhead Resorts and Rechler Equity Partners projects come up for review at some point in the future.
“It was important for the planning commission to come and get a sense of place, so that when projects come up and we’re looking at future development, we have a sense of how it all fits together,” said Dave Calone, planning commission chairman.
“We wanted to get a sense first hand of what’s going on here,” he continued. “The industrial core has been developed and there’s more coming. How this property is developed will have a significant impact on our county and our region.”
The tour, led by Riverhead Supervisor Sean Walter, Councilwoman Jodi Giglio and community development director Chris Kempner, showed commission members where Riverhead Resorts and the Rechler group hope to develop, where a rail spur is slated for restoration and where the old  Calverton sewer plant is located. The group also toured Island International, a company that makes pre-fabricated buildings and employs about 160 people.
Riverhead Resorts is planning to build eight themed resorts on 755 acres it’s seeking to buy from the town for $108 million. That development would require tearing up the 10,000-foot runway at the EPCAL property, formerly the site of a Naval weapons plant. That runway is no longer used for aviation.
Rechler’s project is located on the east side of the property, just north of the active 7,000-foot runway. The developers are proposing to build a hi-tech industrial park on 300 acres, for which they would pay $18 million.
Rechler reportedly is seeking to change some of the uses it is proposing for the site, but no specific information on those changes was immediately available.
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