Builder Bob Castaldi is willing to accept the Riverhead town’s $500,000 counter-offer on the sale of the Second Street firehouse if the town agrees to change the property’s zoning to expand the permitted uses on the site. He’s also requesting the town’s assent to a few other conditions, including sharing any grant award the town may receive for the establishment of a farmer’s market at the old firehouse.
Castaldi’s change of zone request, which received the support of the supervisor and council members John Dunleavy and James Wooten during yesterday’s work session, put Councilwoman Jodi Giglio over the edge. Giglio has opposed selling the firehouse and advocated renovating it for use as municipal offices.
“This property was appraised at $1.8 million five years ago,” Giglio said. “We’re changing the zoning and adding all these additional uses, making the property much more valuable.”
After the work session, Giglio produced the July 2009 appraisal report of Given Associates, made for the Riverhead Fire District. It said the current market value of the property was $1,830,000. The “more flexible zoning” (including retail uses) of comparable sales relied upon in that appraisal “warrants a 20 percent downward adjustment,” according to the Given report.
“I can’t see selling something for $500,000 that appraised for $1.8 million five years ago but to change the zoning like this and allow so many more uses on the site and sell it for less than 30 percent of what it appraised for five years ago is just crazy,” Giglio said after the meeting.
The site is in the town’s DC-4 zoning use district — “Downtown Center 4: Office/Residential Transition Zoning Use District.” The only uses permitted as-of-right in DC-4 are offices, single-family dwellings, townhouses, places of worship and funeral homes.
The DC-1 zone requested by Castaldi (“Downtown Center 1: Main Street Zoning Use District”) is a much more expansive commercial district and allows a host of as-of-right permitted uses: retail stores, banks, indoor public markets, art galleries, cultural attractions, restaurants and cafes, bakeries, specialty food stores, theaters, and residential units on upper floors.
Supervisor Sean Walter said the town board would have to consider a zone change if it wanted the indoor farmer’s market there, since that use isn’t allowed under the current zoning.
“DC-1 is a more attractive zoning,” Walter said. “If we want to revitalize that corner, it would be good.
Wooten said it’s always been his “vision” to see DC-1 zoning extended from the railroad tracks south to the riverfront.
“I’ve always envisioned Riverhead as a metropolis on the river,” Wooten said.
Five-story buildings are also allowed in DC-1, Giglio said.
In an interview after the meeting, the councilwoman said the town board should obtain a current appraisal of the property and issue another request for proposals that contemplates the zoning being changed to DC-1.
“You don’t know what you might get,” Giglio said. “I’m afraid we’re selling the taxpayers short.”
The town issued a request for proposals last year, but it was predicated on the current zoning, Giglio said.
In response to that RFP, Castaldi offered the town $375,000 for the 1.1 acre site, which is developed with a 12,700-square-foot brick former fire station built in the early 1940s.
The builder said he wanted to renovate the structure and lease it to a Japanese company for use as a performance space for live-action dinosaur theater. With Giglio in opposition, a majority of Riverhead Town Board members initially liked the idea, then did an about-face.
The town received only one other proposal in response to the RFP, according to officials.
Earlier this month, after agreeing to seek a $250,000 grant to establish an agritourism center — a potential indoor winter home for the Riverhead Farmers Market — board members agreed to make Castaldi a $500,000 counter-offer.
Yesterday, deputy town attorney Ann Marie Prudenti told board members that Castaldi is interested in accepting the counter-offer, subject to four conditions. In addition to the zone change, he wants to retain some of the parking around the building as well as the detached garage/shed, she said. He also would like 30 days to consider the idea of the farmers market in the space and make application to the town for the transfer of any grant the town receives for that purpose. Castaldi also seeks 30 days to conduct an environmental review of the site, Prudenti said.
Board members raised no objections to any of the other requests.
Castaldi purchased the long-vacant, art-deco Suffolk Theater from the town in 2005, restored and renovated it as a performing arts center and reopened it in March 2013.
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