Rechler wants to build 1,000 apartments & retail at EPCAL

Rechler Equity Partners is looking to renegotiate its EPCAL deal again. After getting the town to agree last year to slash its contract purchase price by nearly half — from $35 million to $18 million —Rechler is now looking at a change in plans for the site, according to town officials. 

Instead of building the 2.7-million-square-foot, hi-tech industrial park it had proposed for 300 acres at the Calverton Enterprise Park, Rechler now wants to build a “mixed-use” project consisting of 1,000 rental apartments, retail space and light industrial, Town Board members said this week. Gregg Rechler has pitched the new plan to the entire Town Board in recent private meetings with individual board members, officials said.

The mixed-use idea got mixed reviews from board members. 

Supervisor Sean Walter is against it. He said he doesn’t favor residential uses at EPCAL and the number of units Rechler wants in any case is “not appropriate.” The supervisor said he believes Rechler is “land-banking it” [the EPCAL land] while he’s “doing everything he can to develop Gabreski.” Rechler Equity Partners signed a 40-year lease with the county in June 2009 for development of a 510,000 square foot business and technology industrial park on 55 acres at the county-owned Gabreski airport in Westhampton.

Councilman John Dunleavy said he likes the idea, even though he thinks the number of housing units should be scaled back.

“Commercial, industrial and housing goes together,” Dunleavy said Wednesday. “Workers can use the housing. They wouldn’t have to commute back and forth,” he said.

Dunleavy also said he believes the town would have to issue a new RFP. Rechler was chosen from several firms that responded to a request for proposals in 2007. The RFP was for all industrial use,” he said. “If we change it to include residential and retail, we’ll have to do another RFP,” Dunleavy said.

Councilman James Wooten said the change is “a pretty heavy lift for the town,” noting “the zoning doesn;t call for residential [uses] at all.” 

Wooten said the impact of 1,000 rental apartments on the schools would be enormous.

“I realize the economy crashed and the timing’s not right,” Wooten said Wednesday, “but we cut the price almost in half and now they want to change the use. How much should the town bend over for them?” Wooten asked.

Council members Jodi Giglio and George Gabrielsen could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Rechler Equity Partners, based in Melville, has a pending application to subdivide the EPCAL land, which is zoned light industrial, into five industrial lots. The subdivision plan is currently undergoing environmental review.  Gregg Rechler, who did not return a phone call seeking comment for this story, has said in the past that the industrial park planned by Rechler Equity Partners  would be built out over  10 years and would include a total of 2.7 million square feet of new industrial space at a cost of $303 million, according to the company, which has projected that the project will generate 3,751 construction jobs and 7,650 permanent jobs over the 10-year period.