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Town to postpone ‘qualified and eligible’ hearing for EPCAL sale

The “qualified and eligible” hearing on Calverton Aviation & Technology scheduled for Wednesday will be adjourned, as one of the principals in that company is changing the name of the entity.

The original hearing notice listed the principals of CA&T as being a joint venture between Luminati Aerospace, LLC and Triple Five Ventures Co., LLC. Together, they are seeking to purchase about 1,600 acres of town land at Enterprise Park at Calverton for $40 million.

But Triple Five has since indicated a change to the entity to Triple Five Real Estate One, LLC, according to Frank Isler, the outside legal counsel negotiating the transaction for the town.

Town officials said the names listed as principals of that LLC are not the same principals they were introduced to during a series of informal meetings board members had in private last Thursday when they met in groups of less than three board members at a time in order to comply with the state’s Open Meetings Law.

The new principals are members of the Ghermezian family, which owns Triple Five World Wide, but are different from the people the town was told were principals Triple Five Ventures Co.

Both Mr. Isler and Councilman Tim Hubbard said the Ghermezians were changing the name of the company that will be part of CA&T for internal tax reasons.

The Q&E hearing is a requirement of the Urban Renewal law, where CA&T must show it has the experience and finances to carry out its intended development plan.

“So far, we’ve only vetted Triple Five Ventures and Luminati,” Supervisor Laura Jens-Smith said at Thursday morning’s work session.

The town would need additional time to vet the new entity, Triple Five Real Estate One, LLC.

Board members agreed and said they will initially issue an informal notice that the Jan. 17 hearing will be postponed, and it will then formally adopt a resolution rescheduling it to an as-yet undetermined date.

Photo caption: Members of the Riverhead Town Board at Thursday’s work session. (Credit: Tim Gannon)

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