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Site plan approved for shopping center in Wading River

A proposed 49,107-square-foot shopping center with a bank and restaurant was approved by the Riverhead Town Planning Board for a second time last Thursday.

Central Square at Wading River was one of four big commercial developments along Route 25A in Wading River in 2012, which led to the Town Board commissioning a Route 25A commercial corridor study in the hamlet.

The study did not recommend zone changes for Central Square, which is owned by the Zoumas family, who had successfully sued the town to overturn a previous attempt to rezone the 18-acre property on the south side of Route 25, adjacent to a CVS pharmacy. 

The project proposes six buildings, four of which would have retail and professional office uses, along with a drive-through bank and a 150-seat restaurant.

It received site plan approval from the Planning Board in 2012, but was never built. The Planning Board granted a one-year extension in 2015, but refused any further extensions. 

Peter Danowski, the attorney for the applicant, said he would be submitting the same application that had previously been approved.

“To revisit the whole thing again would simply be insanity,” he said last year. 

But town officials argued that changes had been made to the town code since the first approval, so the application needed to updated.

The application was resubmitted last year, and received final site plan approval last Thursday.