Three years after 25A study, commercial projects in the works in Wading River
1. VENEZIA SQUARE
This proposal from developer Joseph Vento involves five commercial buildings totaling 40,000 square feet on a vacant 6.34-acre property on the south side of Route 25A, west of Wading River Manor Road.
The buildings would include 30,000 square feet of retail stores, including a 4,000-square-foot bank with a drive-through window; a 3,000-square-foot restaurant with 84 seats; and two 1,500-square-foot take-out restaurants, according to the application.
The Riverhead Town Planning Board will hold a public hearing on the preliminary site plan for Venezia Square Thursday, Dec. 3, at 7 p.m. at Town Hall.
The Venezia Square application had been part of the Corridor Study, but town officials ultimately decided not to rezone property west of Wading River Manor Road.
In the middle of the 2013 election season, during a press conference with Democratic Town Board candidates, environmental advocate Richard Amper urged the town to consider rezoning the properties west of Wading River-Manor Road as well, but Town Board members rejected the idea.
“This has nothing to do with the residents of Wading River and everything to do with [Mr. Amper’s] zeal to get [Democratic candidate] Angela DeVito elected,” Supervisor Sean Walter said at the time.
2. 6333 REALTY GROUP
Immediately east of the Venezia Square property and west of farmland owned by Bernie May, the 6333 Realty Group proposal calls for a 8,160-square-foot commercial development on 1.3 acres of vacant farmland.
A 4,320-square-foot building for office use, including a veterinary office, is proposed for the rear of the property, and a 3,840-square-foot building is penciled in closer to Route 25A. That section is planned for future retail and office use, according to the application.
6333 Realty Group is headed by Deirdre Dubato, according to state records. She and her family own Wading River Veterinary Hospital, which currently occupies in rented space farther east on Route 25A and eventually plans to move into the proposed new building.
3. CENTRAL SQUARE AT WADING RIVER
This was one of the four commercial proposals originally cited by civic and environmental groups when they called for a comprehensive study of development along the 25A corridor. In the end, however, the Town Board chose not to rezone this piece. The Zoumas family, who owns the 18-acre property, had successfully sued to overturn a previous town attempt to rezone it as part of the 2003 Master Plan update. The property owners’ site plan was approved by the Riverhead Planning Board on Dec. 6, 2012.
No development ever took place, however, and the applicant’s attorney, Peter Danowski, asked the Planning Board earlier this year for a one-year extension on that approval. Planning Board approvals are good for three years and applicants can be granted only one 12-month extension.
On Nov. 5, the Planning Board granted the requested extension, which is good until Nov. 6, 2016, because there had been no “material changes in the property’s zoning or in the site plan application.”
The application calls for a 4,250-square-foot bank with a drive-through window, a 5,307-square-foot restaurant with 150 seats, two buildings of 9,786 square feet each with retail and professional offices and two buildings of 9,989 square feet each for retail and professional offices.
4. KNIGHTLAND
Headed by East Wind owner Kenney Barra, Knightland was one of the properties for which the Town Board did change the zoning. Mr. Barra filed suit against the town over the zone change, despite having filed an application that met the new zoning requirements. That lawsuit is still pending.
This six-acre parcel is best known as the location of an annual carnival that benefits Peconic Bay Medical Center. The Knightland proposal calls for five single-story buildings totaling 38,981 square feet. The structures will range in size from 6,317 square feet to 10,041 square feet.
The new zoning, called Multi-Family Residential/Professional Office, replaces the previous Business CR zoning.
An earlier proposal from Knightland in 2002 sought to build a 50-room country inn with a 100-seat restaurant on the six-acre site; the current zoning allows neither of those options.
It was an even earlier project headed by Mr. Barra, called Knightland Village, that originally got civic and environmental groups concerned about the amount of development proposed along Route 25A.
Knightland Village, which is now under construction, is a 35,518-square-foot retail complex comprising 24 buildings. It includes a 5,202-square-foot restaurant and 897-square-foot dining patio located at the intersection of Sound Avenue and Route 25A.
Mr. Barra’s property was not included in the Corridor Study because a Planning Board resolution approving the project was already the subject of litigation at the time. The litigation ultimately was decided in Knightland’s favor.
The other four properties that were rezoned as part of the Corridor Study are all on the north side of Route 25A, east of the Wading River-Manor Road intersection.
Of those, only the owners of the Knightland parcel and a 10.6-acre property located just west of it that is owned by the Condzella/Partridge family filed suit seeking to overturn the zoning. Those cases are still in court. A commercial site plan application called North Shore Country Plaza had been filed on that property as well. That plan called for 43,646 square feet of development, including two restaurants and 29 smaller stores in three buildings. Those uses, however, are not permitted by the new zoning.
John Condzella, who farms on the land located between the Knightland and Partridge/Condzella parcels, voiced support for the rezoning at a public hearing in 2013, and his property continues to be farmed. The other two rezoned properties are two small parcels adjacent to the gas station at the intersection of Route 25A and Sound Avenue.
