Business

PODS moving out to make room for aircraft manufacturer at EPCAL

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Portable On Demand Storage, the popular moving and storage company best known as PODS, is leaving the Enterprise Park at Calverton.

The company, which for several years has rented part of a former Grumman hangar that was also once used to store the wreckage of TWA Flight 800, has filed a site plan application to move to a new location just east of the Riverhead Charter School on Route 25 in Calverton.

The proposal, discussed at the Riverhead Town Planning Board meeting last Thursday, includes building a new 45,210-square-foot warehouse.

PODS representative Gary Krupnick of West RAC Contracting Company said his client has been asked to relocate from the EPCAL site because an undisclosed aircraft manufacturing company is planning to move into the space his client has been renting.

Mr. Krupnick did not identify the company looking to move into the PODS space at EPCAL, but Luminati Aerospace, the aircraft manufacturer that purchased the former Sky Dive Long Island Property last year, has already been leasing additional space in another portion of the building where PODS is located.

A Luminati official was unable to say if they are seeking to move into the PODS space but did confirm the company needs additional space.

The building PODS is leaving is owned by Mivila Foods, which did not return a phone call seeking comment.

The EPCAL land was owned by the U.S. Navy and leased to the Grumman Corporation, which made and tested military aircraft there from about 1956 to 1995. Town officials have said they are trying to bring aircraft manufacturing back to the site and have cited Luminati as the type of business they are looking for. Riverhead Supervisor Sean Walter said he is not aware of any other aviation companies interested in the PODS space at EPCAL.

The nearly 30-acre Main Road property where PODS is looking to move also includes about six acres being rented to a solar energy company. Town planners said the site plan shows one undeveloped part of the property north of the solar panels and south of the proposed PODS warehouse for which nothing is planned. Since the land is all considered one parcel, state law requires that a plan for the entire site be submitted, so that the review isn’t “segmented,” according to town building and planning administrator Jeff Murphree.

He said the Planning Board cannot vote on the application until this issue is resolved and the plan is revised to show a use for the entire property, which Mr. Krupnick agreed to do.

Mr. Krupnick said the new PODS building will have between 10 and 12 employees and will be used for stacking containers. The containers will be delivered to customers, so the building would not be open to the public.

When asked if truck noise would disrupt the nearby charter school, Mr. Krupnick said that while the trucks do make a beeping sound backing up, they won’t need to do so while at the warehouse.

“It’s a clean, quiet operation,” he said.

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Photo credit: Tim Gannon