News

MTA looking to lease out Riverhead LIRR station building

MTA, LIRR,
NEWS-REVIEW FILE PHOTO | The Riverhead station hasn’t been used as a train station since 1972.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has issued a request for proposals in hopes that a private company would lease the long-vacant Riverhead train station on Railroad Street.

l Irr River Head Station Building r Fp

The RFP was issued in early April and calls for proposals to be returned by Friday, Sept. 28 at 5 p.m. A site visit for prospective renters is scheduled for Friday, Aug. 31, at noon.

The MTA is looking for to lease out the 102-year-old, 1,500-square-foot building for 10 years.

Prohibited uses for the site include vending machines, the sale of firearms, tattoo parlors, massage parlors or any other use that might be known as an “adult use,” the RFP reads.

The tenant would be required to make the bathroom in the facility available to LIRR customers during morning and afternoon peak hours, and the tenant would be prohibited from storing flammable materials on the site.

The tenant would also be required to pay for utilities at the site. The station hasn’t been used as a train station since 1972.

The MTA, which owns the Long Island Railroad, put about $1 million in renovations into the Railroad Avenue station and then leased it to the town at no charge in 2002, with a condition that it be occupied by a nonprofit organization.

But the station has been vacant for almost all of that time period, as the town has been unable to even give it away rent free.

The current RFP makes no mention of a prohibition on alcohol, although that could be defined as a “adult use,” and it makes no requirement that the tenant be a non-profit.

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Read more in the Sept. 6 edition of the News-Review newspaper.