Business

Cardinale closes deal on former Capital One Bank property

The former North Fork and Capital One bank building in Mattituck. (Credit: Carrie Miller)
The former North Fork and Capital One bank building in Mattituck. (Credit: Carrie Miller)

A North Fork real estate giant has closed a deal to buy the former Capital One bank property in Mattituck, and workers have already begun work on the property.

Alan Cardinale, who runs Cardinal Management in Mattituck which owns both the Mattituck Plaza and Jamesport Center, closed on the property at 9025 Main Road in Mattituck for an undisclosed sum on Sept. 2, said Samuel Clark of the Manhattan commercial real estate firm Cushman and Wakefield, the firm that sold the property.

The property had been sold at an auction on July 30, with a starting bid set at $600,000. But the property did not meet its reserve to sell during the auction and was sold in a “re-capture,” a transaction offer that occurred outside of the auction itself, a representative from the auction company said.

Mr. Cardinale did not return phone calls to his office seeking comment.

This isn’t the first time Alan Cardinale has owned the Main Road property. In November 1982, he purchased the property — then a supermarket — for $175,000 at foreclosure, said town assessor Kevin Webster.

Two years later, Mr. Cardinale sold the property to North Fork Bancorp for $975,000, according to town property records. The building served as the headquarters for North Fork Bank, until Capital One purchased the bank and the building in 2006. Though bank management said no jobs would be at risk, the call center on the property was shut down in 2011 and put onto the market two years later.

Tax assessor records show the property has a full market value of $10,683,000 with an assessed value of $124,995.

Workers are now at the former office building doing landscaping and maintenance around the property. Last week, several workers said they were hired to make improvements to the property while the new owner searches for a tenant for the building.

An easement on the property from 1984 prevented previous owners from using the property for anything other than office space. But now that Mr. Cardinale is the owner again, the easement could be retired and the building would only require a site plan approval to house retail space again, Southold Town Supervisor Scott Russell had said in an interview last month.

Mr. Russell said he hadn’t yet spoken to Mr. Cardinale.

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