The former Hy Ting restaurant building has sold.
It was purchased by investors who plan to renovate the building with two second-floor apartments and a restaurant on the ground floor, said Ike Israel of Richmond Realty, the broker on the deal.
The buyer was HREA 54 W Main LLC. The sale closed last week, Israel said.
Jason Breitstone, managing member of the LLC and a principal in a firm called Hildreth Advisors in New York City, posted on about the purchase on the social media website LinkedIn. The buyer paid $475,000 for the two-story brick building at 54 West Main Street, according to Breitstone’s post.
“Excited to have a new property in the family. This is our second acquisition on Long Island this year within an Opportunity Zone. We plan on performing a full renovation to qualify for OZ tax benefits,” he wrote.
The opportunity zone community development program, offered through the Tax Cuts and Job Acts of 2017, encourages private investment in low-income urban and rural communities. Opportunity Zones offer federal income tax incentives designed to spur economic development by allowing taxpayers to defer capital gains by reinvesting those gains into communities that have been specially designated as “qualified opportunity zones.”
Downtown Riverhead and a portion of Calverton — the area including and adjacent to the enterprise park — were designated opportunity zones by the federal government in 2018.
Israel said the restaurant space will be offered for lease and interested parties should contact him at Richmond Realty. It will probably be ready for spring occupancy, Israel said.
The owners are finishing up plans to file with the building department, he said. The town board at its last meeting passed a resolution consenting to the renovations, as required by a New York Main Street Grant Program property maintenance declaration filed by the former owner in January 2015.
Hy-Ting Restaurant was shuttered after its liquor license was revoked by the state in 2018 following numerous referrals to the State Liquor Authority by the Riverhead Town Police Department, which said Hy Ting had become a focal point for police attention since September 2017.
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