Blighted building demolished to make way for new development at 205 Osborn Avenue

A long-vacant eyesore in downtown Riverhead was demolished today to make way for a five-story mixed use building at the corner of Osborn Avenue and Court Street.

The blighted one-story former medical office building next to Riverhead Free Library was reduced to rubble. In its place will rise rental apartments above ground-floor office space to be built by Huntington developer G2D Group.

The $19.6 million development will offer 37 market-rate rental apartments — 24 one-bedroom, 10 two-bedroom and three studio units in the 41,867-square-foot, 50-foot-tall building.

The developer obtained preliminary site plan approval in February and closed title on the purchase of the approximately half-acre site from AKA Holdings of Syosset less than two weeks later for $2.55 million.

It is G2D Group’s second project in downtown Riverhead. The developer currently has a market-rate rental apartment building under construction on East Main Street.

The project is the first to be undertaken in the Railroad Avenue Overlay District, which allows increased density and a greater variety of uses to incentivize new development in the area surrounding the Riverhead train station. The overlay district was adopted by the town board in January 2021. The town adopted a Transit Oriented Development plan to guide revitalization of the area, which is home to state court buildings and offices.

The town board named a master developer for the TOD in February: RXR and Georgica Green Ventures have proposed to build a mixed-use apartment building on the site of a town-owned parking lot opposite the State Supreme Court building — and across the street from the 205 Osborn Avenue site. The master developer also proposed a five-story parking garage with six levels of parking for the corner of Griffing and Railroad avenues. The garage would be approximately 130,000-160,000 square feet and provide 420-520 parking spaces.