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Proposed Central Square shopping center in Wading River back to square one

Central Square, a 52,612-square-foot shopping center proposed for Wading River, will be going back to the drawing board. The planning department ruled that the project’s previous site plan approval could not be given any additional extensions, and the applicant would have to start over, as if it were a new application.

The proposal, located just east of CVS on Route 25A, received initial site plan approval in 2012 and was given a one-year extension in 2015, at which point development still had not begun.

Attorney Peter Danowski said he was told at that time that no further extensions could be granted.

The application that’s being resubmitted is identical to the one approved in 2012, but it will have to undergo the entire review process again.

The proposed shopping center was originally slated to include a bank, a 150-seat restaurant and four buildings with retail and professional uses.

Mr. Danowski said the applicant, the Zoumas family, has agreed to preserve the southern half of the property as open space and to provide a cross easement with the adjacent properties so cars can go from property to the other without going back onto Route 25A.

Central Square is one of four large developments that prompted the town to conduct a Wading River Corridor Study for Route 25A. The study did not recommend any zone changes for the Zoumas property, as the owners had successfully sued to overturn an earlier attempt by the town to rezone that parcel.

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