The same developer who spearheaded development of the old Woolworth building in downtown Riverhead now has his sights set on another long-vacant building across the street. READ
Tag: Woolworth building
The Riverhead Industrial Development Agency unanimously approved a measure Monday allowing Robert James Salon to move into a new, smaller, location in the former Woolworth building on the north side of downtown Main Street. READ
The Riverhead Flower Shop will move into the former Woolworth building the week after Valentine’s Day, owner Peggy Kneski said. (Credit: Barbaraellen Koch)
A longtime downtown Riverhead business is moving up the street and into a newly renovated building.
Peggy Kneski, owner of Riverhead Flower Shop on East Main Street, said her store is moving into a presently vacant 1,100-square-foot space next-door to Goldberg’s Famous Bagels the week after Valentine’s Day. The shop will be located in the former Woolworth building, which also houses Ultimate Fitness. (more…)
Thirty West Main developer Georgia Malone in the second-floor lounge. (Credit: Barbaraellen Koch)
Downtown Riverhead has been touted for years as a place “on the rise,” an up-and-coming magnet drawing both new businesses and new apartments. A 52-unit apartment complex opened on Peconic Avenue in 2010 and 19 more units are set open soon in the former Woolworth building — right next to the renovated Suffolk Theater. Another 48 affordable housing units are slated for West Main Street. (more…)
Developer Michael Butler leads Pat Snyder, the East End Arts director, on a tour of the building during an open house Wendesday night. (Credit: Paul Squire)
Forty people have already put in applications for the 19 available apartment spaces in the newly-renovated former Woolworth building.
But developer Michael Butler said potential renters shouldn’t be discouraged; the building is set to take in its first tenants next year, he said, but it will still have openings. (more…)
Ultimate Fitness is expected to be open within weeks. (Credit: Barbaraellen Koch)
A 25,000-square foot fitness center in downtown Riverhead’s newly-renovated Woolworth building is targeting an opening early next month, as interior construction work on the apartments above the gym is set to begin.
Maximus Health & Fitness, which relocated from its location on Route 58, should be open in the first or second week of May, constructions workers said as they set up exercise equipment inside the space. (more…)
BARBARAELLEN KOCH PHOTO | Cecil Sweeney, a laborer with A1 Reliable Industries Corporation of Farmingdale, takes a break on the second floor of the Woolworth building Thursday afternoon.
Demolition of the 25,000-square-foot Woolworth building in downtown Riverhead began this week.
Michael Butler, Woolworth Revitalization LLC’s managing partner, said Thursday a construction crew is in the midst of demolishing the building’s interior.
“It’s moving along,” Mr. Butler said. “Right now we’re essentially opening up the whole downstairs and getting rid of everything that was rotten and old.”
Mr. Butler couldn’t predict when the demolition will be finished but said it would take at least another month.
“The building had a lot of water damage and it was neglected a long time,” he said.
Ultimate Fitness, a longtime Route 58 gym, is expected to begin occupying 20,000 square feet of the building’s first floor once construction is finished, possibly in September.
The remaining 5,000 square feet on the first floor will be carved into additional retail space and has already generated a good deal of interest from potential tenants, Mr. Butler said.
“There has been a lot of interest from food-related businesses more than anything, whether it’s restaurants or take-out places,” Mr. Butler said.
Building plans also call for 19 apartment units on the building’s 15,000-square-foot second floor.
Woolworth went out of business in 1997 and the building has been empty since then. It was purchased for about $4 million in 2006 by Apollo Real Estate Advisors, a Manhattan-based investment group. At the time, Apollo was proposing a $500 million revitalization for almost all of downtown, though that project later fell apart.
Mr. Butler, who lives in Sag Harbor, purchased the property from Apollo Real Estate Advisors earlier this year.
“We’re fixing it up and in the end it’s going to be a great building,” he said.
PAUL SQUIRE PHOTO | Workers clean out Knu Style-N-Temple on East Main Street Tuesday.
An East Main Street barber shop is being shut down after getting evicted from its space, law enforcement personnel said at the scene Tuesday morning.
A manager at the store declined to comment.
Store owner Charlie Green didn’t want to talk about the circumstances around the eviction, but said he was trying to take the move in stride.
“God has his way of moving things, making things move,” Mr. Green said. “Everything happens for a reason.”
A pile of chairs, decorations, and potted plants was stacked outside the store Tuesday morning, as workers loaded the supplies into a moving truck and nearby van.
Knu Style N Temple had moved to the Woolworth building location last November.
The store was on Peconic Avenue for the previous 11 years, and was on Old Quogue Road in Riverside for five years before that, owner Charlie Green previously told the News-Review
Plans are in the works to renovate the recently sold Woolworth building for apartments and retail, including a gym.
Mr. Green said he wasn’t sure whether the barber shop would reopen in a new location.
“It’s up in the air,” he said. “Right now everything is in God’s hands.”