Riverhead looking to collaborate with Patchogue on local ‘Alive after Five’

Riverhead is looking to work with Patchogue to establish an “Alive After Five” event on Main Street beginning next summer.

Organizers of Patchogue’s biweekly Thursday night event are willing to “co-brand” the event with Riverhead, according to Riverhead BID Management Association vice president Steve Shauger. That would allow Riverhead to use the “Alive After Five” name, he said.

The two towns would alternate Thursdays, Shauger told BID board members at Wednesday’s monthly board meeting.

The village closes down its Main Street for “Alive After Five,” a street festival featuring outdoor dining and live music. (See GreaterPatchogue.com for photos of the most recent “Alive After Five” event.) It draws thousands of people each time and has been a boon to Patchogue’s downtown businesses and overall revitalization, Riverhead restaurateur John Mantzapoulos said. He, Shauger and other BID members attended the event together recently.

“It’s a very, very well-organized event,” Mantzapoulos said, “They have it down to a science. And it’s very successful. Come 7:30 or 8 o’clock, there’s not an empty table anywhere.”

The Patchogue event, which is run by the chamber of commerce there, costs about $45,000 a year to run, and it brings in about $60,000 in revenues from vendor fees and the like, Shauger said.

Talks between the two towns are “in the infancy stage,” Shauger said. The BIDMA board agreed to pursue the idea.

BIDMA to advocate parking garage proposed by councilwoman

Riverhead should pursue a multi-level parking garage to be built in the parking lot north of East Main Street between East and Roanoke Avenues, BIDMA board members agreed Wednesday. Business owners in the central portion of the downtown business district are suffering from a parking shortage during business hours, and an multi-level parking facility is needed to address it, they believe.

The BIDMA board, at the suggestion of Councilwoman Jodi Giglio, who sat in on part of the board meeting Wednesday, will write a letter to the town board asking it to initiate the process for getting a garage built.

It’s a costly endeavor, BIDMA president Ray Pickersgill said, costing some $35,000 per parking space.

But Giglio said she has a developer who’s “got the dollars” and “is ready to go.”

The project would be in partnership with the town and the BID, she said.

“You’d do an RFP for a developer to build a garage on parking district property,” Giglio said. “Then you can select an negotiate with the developer. Then Chris [Kempner] can go and get the grant money.” The developer’s investment would be the matching funds sure to be required by any grant.

“You guys start the ball rolling. Once the town board says yes, we can do the RFP,” Giglio said.

Parking in the garage would be paid, Pickersgill said. Revenues would pay for the facility’s operation and maintenance.

Indoor farmers market pulling up roots again

The indoor farmers market will likely be moving again this fall.

BIDMA president Ray Pickersgill said he’s been discussing renting the market’s first location with the building owner. The market was very successful there in 2013-2014, but was relocated last year to the former Dinosaur Walk Museum site on the corner of East Main Street and McDermott Avenue. It moved because Riverhead Enterprises, the owner of the first storefront occupied by the indoor market, was supposed to rent the space to a dollar store chain. That deal fell through, however, and the store, once occupied by Swezey’s Department Stores, remains empty.

“It was better to have the indoor farmers market in the center of town,” Pickersgill said. The McDermott Avenue building on the eastern end of the central business strip on East Main Street, didn’t have the same impact downtown, he said. It was also too expensive, Pickersgill said.

The McDermott Avenue building cost the BID $3,000 per month, while rent for the building at 117 E. Main St., much smaller and in much rougher shape — there was no heat, for example — cost $3,000 for the season.

Riverhead Enterprises partner Sheldon Gordon will only rent the space for a full year this time around, Pickersgill said, as opposed to a lease that runs from October to May, when the indoor farmers market operates.

Pickersgill said he is still discussing terms with Gordon.

He also said he has put in a call to Jeffrey Rimland, owner of the two-story building occupied by Consignments Galore, which is in the process of moving to a smaller space on Main Road in Aquebogue.

The BIDMA board agreed to abandon the outdoor farmers market after this season. With all the farm stands in the area, it’s difficult to attract both farmers and shoppers to the riverfront market during the summer — in contrast to the winter market indoors, where 35 vendors are already signed up for a third season, according to Pickersgill.

Reporting by Katie Blasl