Owner seeks permit to demolish former Sears building, three others on E. Main St.

The owner of the long-vacant former Sears building and the three smaller buildings adjacent to it has filed an application for a permit to tear down the structures.

The demolition permit application must be approved by the Riverhead Landmarks Preservation Commission before the building department can issue the permit.

A representative of the company that owns the buildings declined comment yesterday.

“We’re not ready to talk about any plans we have there,” Sheldon Gordon of Riverhead Enterprises said.

The buildings are within the Riverhead Main Street Historic District, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012. The Sears Roebuck building, built in 1949, was determined to be a “contributing resource” to the historic district. But that won’t prevent its demolition, according to Riverhead Landmarks Preservation Commission chairman Richard Wines.

However, its inclusion as a contributing resource does place restrictions on the site if the owner is looking to tap into state or federal funding for a development. Riverhead Enterprises signed a contract last year with a developer who wanted to build a five-story, mixed-use apartment building on the site. The developer wanted to take advantage of New York State-sponsored financing, so the plan required an application to the State Historic Preservation Office, which objected to the demolition of the Sears building. (The three smaller buildings to its east were not determined to be “contributing resources” to the historic district and had no restrictions placed on them.)

Working around the existing facade of the old Sears building meant a reduction in the overall floor area and number of apartments that could have been built, so the developer moved on. The same developer is now in contract to buy another site on the same block, former home of the Dinosaur Walk Museum (the McCabe’s Office Products property), where he plans a scaled-down version of the development.

Whether there’s a building on site or not, Wines said, the State Historic Preservation Office will have to certify that the proposed construction won’t negatively impact historic resources. Historic resources are those that could be eligible for listing on the National Register, Wines said.

“They [the State Historic Preservation Office] don’t want to see a five-story wall right on the edge of the arts council campus,” he said, referring to the site of four historic structures, including the 1840s Davis-Corwin house— the first home built on Main Street.

“They don’t want to see a five-story story wall on Main Street,” Wines said. “They’d like to see the front facade set back 20 or 30 feet. They want to ensure that any new construction does not harm the historic fabric of the neighborhood.”

Even with the site vacant — and even if there was no Main Street historic district listed on the National Register, the Chapter 106 review by the State Historic Preservation Office would still come into play, Wines said.

The National Historic Preservation Act says that federal assistance will be witheld in cases of “anticipatory demolition” — so razing the Sears building prior to any new development proposal could have consequences for a new owner interested in applying for any federal housing subsidies.

Wines said he’d like to be able to see what’s going to be proposed for the site when he and the other commission members review the demolition permit application, which will likely take place at the commission’s next regular meeting later this month.

“I‘m sure the Landmarks Preservation Commission will want to work with the town to produce a good outcome here,” Wines said. “I don’t anticipate any major difficulties over this.”

Riverhead Town Supervisor Sean Walter said he’s “very happy” about the plan to tear down the buildings.

“I think it’s an important first step toward the revitalization of that block,” Walter said in a phone interview yesterday. “Those buildings are past their useful life. I think anyone that would look at those buildings objectively would realize that,” he said.

“I hope he lets me drive the bulldozer.”