Kmart municipal complex nixed, town goes back to the drawing board with justice court safety concerns ‘first and foremost’

Riverhead Town will no longer pursue the former Kmart building on Route 58 and Northville Turnpike for a municipal complex.

Councilman Tim Hubbard told RiverheadLOCAL in March the town was considering the building to house almost all its department and town hall offices, the Riverhead Senior Center and the Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps new headquarters. 

Hubbard, the member of the board who was pursuing the project, said in an interview last week that the town was looking to buy the building outright, but the building’s owners wanted to lease it to the town for at least 10 years with a first year option to buy afterwards. A long-term lease with an option to buy was the initial proposal on the table, Hubbard told RiverheadLOCAL in March.

“Financially that wasn’t the right deal for the taxpayers,” Hubbard said. “So for us to buy it out and repurpose it ourselves it would have worked. But it didn’t. So we’re now looking for other options.”

Leasing the Kmart building is also not feasible because it would require renovation that might violate state prevailing wage laws, Hubbard said. If the town leased the building, and the owners did the renovations, the town might be at risk of being found of violating those laws, Hubbard said. The councilman said that analysis came from a report by the National Development Council, a nonprofit community development consultant the town hired in July for three projects, including the Kmart site. The consultant was to assess the potential purchase or lease of the property, at a fee not to exceed $15,000.

The relocation of town offices would have helped solve the two-decade-old problem of the overcrowded and obsolete Riverhead Town Justice Court, which shares a building with the Riverhead Police Department next to Town Hall on Howell Avenue. Once the offices were moved out of Town Hall, the town could repurpose that building for use by the court.

“Ultimately, we have to get justice court into a new scenario. That’s first and foremost,” Hubbard said.

Successive town boards, dating back to the early 2000s, have discussed the need to correct space, safety and security concerns about the justice court facility, but have taken no action.

There are numerous safety and security concerns about the inadequate space in the building, constructed in the mid-1980s. The safety and security issues were documented by the State Office of Court Administration in an assessment of the facility done in 2006. The recommendations made by that agency 15 years ago have largely gone unheeded: installation of outdoor video cameras, bullet-resistant exterior glass, locked gates to restrict access to the sides and rear of the building, armed peace officers to staff the metal detector at the main entry-point, and more. During its regular operations before COVID-19, the busy town court often had people with court appearances waiting in lines that extended outside the building and into the parking lot. 

Town justices have been lobbying the board to take action for years, with the late Justice Allen Smith leading the charge after his election in 2010, but the town board, which authorized studies and plans for renovations and/or relocations, swatted the plans down because of their price tags, with town officials rejecting issuing bonds to pay for improvements, expansions or relocations.

Plans discussed by various boards include: a 2003 plan devised by the town’s engineering consultants, H2M, to expand the existing police and court building with a second-story and two first-floor additions; a 2009 plan by architect Martin Sendlewski to expand Town Hall to allow it to accommodate the justice court and connect Town Hall with the current police/court building.

The town even successfully petitioned the state for ownership of the state armory site on Route 58, after the state shuttered the armory, for a proposed public safety complex. Legislation conveying the 5.7-acre site to the town was passed by the State Legislature and signed into law by the governor in 2011.

The town board spent $87,500 on an assessment and design for the armory completed in 2013, but declined to undertake the renovations when the report showed the potential cost to be $13 million.

Hubbard said he previously supported the armory plan, but said last week the armory is no longer on the table. The price has probably increased since the plan was done seven years ago, he said, and he is worried about how emergency vehicles could operate efficiently on the busy commercial corridor. “It just never really panned out to be a good idea,” he said.

Hubbard said the town would rather see the property used for a YMCA.

However, that would require an act of the State Legislature to amend the law that conveyed the armory site to the town for a dollar a decade ago. The legislation specifies that the “premises shall be improved and maintained for use by the police department, justice court, public safety and recreational programs developed and operated by the Town of Riverhead Police Department.” The conveyance contains a reverter clause stating if the building isn’t used for the specified purposes, title to the property “shall revert back to the People of the State of New York.” The State Attorney General may bring an action for “a judgment declaring a revestment” of title in the state.

The town is still considering the expansion of Town Hall on Howell Avenue. Hubbard said one possible scenario is to construct a multiple-story building on the lawn in outside the entrance, and then connect that building to the existing one.

A second scenario is building an entirely new multiple-story Town Hall where the building’s current parking lot is, then demolishing the current building and creating parking there, Hubbard said. Hubbard said the plans are in early discussion between himself and the town engineer, and will be discussed with the board at a future work session.

The plan to build a new structure on the lawn outside Town Hall and connect it to the existing building “is what the board looks like it is supporting,” Supervisor Yvette Aguiar said Friday.

The town board has not discussed any scenarios or ideas in a public work session since January 2019, when the justices met with the town board to review alternatives. Again, nothing materialized, other than the placement of a temporary work trailer being the police/court building last year for use as offices by the two town justices.

Hubbard said the town also looked into purchasing the three-story building on Second Street that is currently Peconic Bay Medical Center’s Entenmann campus, but it is not currently for sale. Town officials in 2017 discussed buying the building, the former Suffolk County National Bank Headquarters, from People’s United Bank after People’s United acquired the Riverhead-based bank. Again, the town didn’t act out of fiscal concerns. Peconic Bay Medical Center subsequently bought the property from People’s United.

Councilwoman Catherine Kent, who previously said the Kmart space could be a good solution for the town’s issues when it was first introduced, said in an interview last week she doesn’t like the space because it moves Town Hall away from the downtown area. 

Kent also said the RVAC headquarters being in the building could have been disruptive to town meetings and to the senior center in the building.

She said the town board should consider adding a second floor to the police station building, as per the 2003 H2M plan. Kent also proposed a possible prefabricated building be erected on town property near the police station for more space, which is something she said Southampton has done.

“I think that we need to explore exactly what our needs are, what’s best for us financially, look at our different options… and then weigh all that in,” Kent said.

Hubbard’s current plans to expand Town Hall on Howell Avenue do not include space for a new RVAC headquarters . The ambulance company has been seeking more space to meet increased demands for service. The Kmart building, had the plan been deemed feasible, would have housed RVAC as well.

Hubbard said the town will explore RVAC’s original idea, to expand its headquarters on its current site on town-owned land on Osborn Avenue, adjacent to the highway department.