A locally renowned baking company is planning to open up shop on East Main Street.
The owner of the Blue Duck Bakery, which has current locations in Southampton and Southold, has his eyes on the former Sears location on East Main Street.
Blue Duck Bakery owner Keith Kouris said he’s spoken to town officials and commenced negotiations with the building’s owner, Riverhead Enterprises. He plans to build a bakery-cafe on the site. The production portion of the new facility would create 75-100 new jobs — and 10,000 to 15,000 loaves of bread daily, Kouris said. Most of the 20,000 square foot building would be dedicated to baking Blue Duck’s artisan breads. A storefront cafe would offer soups, bread and bakery products. Kouris said he has a similar, though smaller setup, in Southampton, where he opened the Blue Duck Bakery Cafe 11 years ago. He expanded to Southold in 2008. Kouris said he needs a larger bakery facility to accommodate his growing wholesale business and Riverhead’s geographic location, providing easy access to both forks as well as points west, suits his needs perfectly.
Kouris said he and his wife recently moved to Aquebogue from Patchogue and love the town. “It’s a great place,” he said, “and we’re excited to be part of what’s happening downtown.”
Goings-on downtown include the retail-housing mixed-use “Summer Wind” project proposed by developer Ray Dickhoff, and a renewed Suffolk Theatre project (see story).
“This would never never, never would have happened under Apollo,” said Supervisor Sean Walter, referring to the former master developer designated by the Town Board during the Cardinale administration to redevelop the Main Street corridor. “We opened the floodgates [by canceling the Apollo contract]. People who were interested in redeveloping downtown were told by Apollo that they [Apollo] were the master builders and the property they were interested in might be condemned,” Walter said. The threat of condemnation prevented things from moving forward, he said.
“It just goes to show you,” Walter said, “when the government gets involved in something that the free market is normally better at, the government screws things up and that’s what the government in Riverhead did,” Walter said.
“Once we release the free market system, I think it’s going to work fine downtown,” said Walter, who has said downtown revitalization is one of the top priories of administration.
Kouris credits Riverhead Community Development direct Chris Kempner for sparking his interest in Riverhead. “We were looking in Mattituck,” he said. “She [Kempner] suggested downtown Riverhead, and explained all the benefits to us for locating here,” he said, referring to the economic development incentives of the downtown’s Empire Zone and urban renewal area designations.
Kouris, a baker with 30 years experience, said, if all goes well, he would hope to have all permits, plans and agreements finalized by the end of this year, so that construction could be completed in early 2011.
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