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Dick’s, Christmas Tree Shops, coming to Riverhead

Dick's, Route 58, Riverhead
JENNIFER GUSTAVSON FILE PHOTO | The Dick’s Sporting Good store in Lake Grove.

The Riverhead Planning Board on Thursday voted 4-0 to approve a proposed 122,000-square-foot shopping center on 13 acres adjacent to Riverhead Raceway and Glenwood Village on Route 58.

Rick Decola, a representative for the applicant, Saber Riverhead LLC of Armonk, N.Y. said after the vote that the group hopes to begin construction in February and have the center open by the fall of 2013.

Saber Riverhead principal Martin Berger has said its tenants will inched Dick’s Sporting Goods, Christmas Tree Shops, Buffalo Wild Wings, an ALDI supermarket, Five Below and a Starbucks with a drive-through window.

The applicants are proposing to build a new traffic signal which would be shared with a 271,000-square-foot proposed shopping center on the north side of Route 58 that would have a Costco as its anchor store.

That project, called Shops at Riverhead, was approved by the planning board last month.

Saber Riverhead also agreed to provide cross easements with its neighboring properties, including Maximum Motorsports, the Holiday Inn Express and a 7-Eleven/gas station.

The cross easements would allow traffic to flow between the sites without having to come back on Route 58.

Saber Riverhead also agreed to build a sound wall to block noise from the development from impacting residents at Glenwood Village, and they agreed to eliminate a loading dock that was near homes at the community.

The wall would cover a 200 foot stretch on the east part of Saber’s property, where there are about four homes, according to Charles Cuddy, the attorney for the applicant.

The 13-acre property has previously been owned by Riverhead Park Corps and Larry Oxman and was involved in a protected legal fight after the town accused Riverhead Park and Mr. Oxman of illegally clearing the land and filling in wetlands.

Mr. Oxman eventually won the litigation, but lost the property to foreclose last year.

Planning Board member Lyle Wells, a farmer, left the room during the discussion and vote on Saber Riverhead, which plans to use five development credits transferred from preserved farmland in order to increase the amount of development permitted on the site. Mr. Wells said afterward that he was advised to recuse himself from the discussion and the vote because he may sell development credits from his farm to the applicant.

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