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As Summerwind takes shape, potential commercial tenants line up

TIM GANNON PHOTO | Jodi Giglio, her daughter Jessica, and shop foreman Robert Albinski at the Summerwind site Friday.

The Summerwind retail and apartment complex in downtown Riverhead should be occupied by October, and potential commercial tenants are already lining up, said Councilwoman Jodi Giglio, who one of the owners of the project along with local builder Ray Dickhoff and architect Martin Sendlewski.

The frame is now being contructed on the property four-story mixed use building.

“We’re excited,” she said from the site Friday. “It’s starting to look like a building.”

When done, the project will have 52 “workforce housing” apartments on the top three floors and a restaurant and stores on the ground floor, Ms. Giglio said.

“We have four restaurants competing for the space that would occupy half the space on the first floor,” she said, adding that she can’t disclose names at this point, but that none of them are national chains.

“One is sports bar, another is a Japanese restaurant, another is a steak house and the fourth one is more of a bar/pub,” she said.

The project calls for construction of a 100-seat restaurant with outdoor seating.

She also couldn’t disclose the retail tenants, although she said one is close to signing a contract. None of them are national chains, either, she added.

The frame is being built by Northeast Steel Fabricators, of EPCAL, a company that Ms. Giglio works for as a steel broker.

“Obviously, they got the contract, and they are doing a great job,” she said. “We are meeting our time schedules and getting the first floor up to make it start looking like a building.”

The project is estimated to create more than 100 construction jobs, he said.

In order to the meet the “workforce housing” criteria to rent one of the building’s apartments, potential tenants must be working, they cannot receive any income subsidies, and they must make less than $58,000 per year for one person or $67,900 for a couple. Tenants must verify their income every year.

Suffolk County provided $1.9 million toward the project, in order to keep the rentals affordable. In exchange, Summerwind’s owners must keep the apartments affordable for 30 years. Despite the county money, it is considered a private project.

Rents will be between $800 and $950 per month for a studio apartment, and about $1,200 per month for one of three two-bed apartments in the complex, Ms. Giglio said.

Applicants will be chosen through a lottery overseen by the non-profit Long Island Housing Project.

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