Hotel developer has plans to reconfigure Exit 73 off-ramp, change traffic pattern

The operator of the Hilton Garden Inn who plans to build a Marriott Residence Inn on the same site wants to reconfigure the Long Island Expressway exit 73 off-ramp.

Lee Browning, who is now planning to build a second hotel on the site, hopes to create a new signalized intersection that will allow traffic exiting the expressway to proceed both east and west. An entrance to the developer’s property would be built opposite the ramp, on the north side of Route 58, Browning told the Riverhead Industrial Development Agency Monday.

Currently, traffic exiting the expressway at exit 73 must travel east on County Road 58, a divided highway in that area, or directly enter Tanger Outlets. Travelers bound for Browning’s hotel — whether coming off the LIE or eastbound on Route 58 from the Route 25 merge — must enter into one of the retail centers east of the hotel in order to access the westbound lanes of the county highway. Visitors to his hotel can only exit westbound and must drive about a mile west to a turnaround on Route 25 in order to head east on Route 58.

“The entrance to the hotel is and always has been an issue,” Browning told the IDA board during a public hearing on his application for IDA tax benefits.

The road reconstruction would cost $750,000 and will be done at his expense, Browning said. It must be approved by the state Department of Transportation and the county Department of Public Works.  The developer said county traffic engineers didn’t like a second alternative he offered: a signalized entrance on the eastern portion of his site, which would also be signalized.

Decision on IDA benefits delayed

The IDA board did not make a decision Monday on Browning’s application for a real property tax abatement and mortgage, sales and compensating use tax exemptions, though after the hearing, two of the board’s four current members said they favored it.

“A Marriott Residence Inn is a plus for the town,” member Lou Kalogeras said. “He’s been great for tourism. I’m of the opinion we should pull the trigger now.”

Paul Thompson agreed. “He’s been an excellent neighbor,” Thompson said.

But member Dawn Thomas said she’d like to see documentation of the financing contingency requiring IDA benefits, as stated by Browning during the hearing — as well as a cost-benefit analysis that’s being prepared by IDA executive director Tracy Stark. Browning said if he didn’t get the IDA benefits he would not be able to begin construction for three years, Thomas noted. If he waits three years and builds, he’d be fully taxable, she said. If he builds now, he will have a declining 10-year property tax abatement. Thomas said she wanted to compare the net difference in tax revenues.

“He’d be creating jobs right away,” Kalogeras said. “It’s important to induce this business to come here now. This is what we need to do to get him to come here now.”

Thompson said the developer could go to the Suffolk IDA to get the same benefits if the Riverhead IDA rejects his application.

“I understand that what we do here is not give away tax dollars. We induce projects to build our tax base,” Thomas said. “I think we need more data so we could respond in an intelligent way” to concerns and questions raised by South Jamesport resident Larry Simms during the hearing.

Simms, the only member of the public to speak at the hearing, asked whether the board had documentation of the project financing condition requiring IDA property tax abatements. He also asked whether the board had done a cost-benefit analysis on the impacts of the abatements sought.

“I’m most concerned about what was not said here today,” Simms said.

Stark said she’d have the documentation from the bank and the cost-benefit analysis to the board members before the board’s next meeting April 6.

Property taxes on the existing hotel — which received IDA benefits several years ago and currently pays annual property taxes of  $141,197 — would not be reduced by the new abatement. The land will continue to be taxed. The value of the land has been increased by Browning’s purchase of 36 agricultural development rights credits, Stark noted. The value of the new hotel would gradually come on the tax rolls over a 10-year period.

The total value of the new hotel construction project is an estimated $26.9 million, according to IDA documents.

Browning is also currently building a hotel in Ronkonkoma, a 122-room, four-story, extended-stay Hilton Homewood Suites. He received tax abatements and exemptions from the Brookhaven IDA for that project as well, according to Newsday.