First development for Railroad Avenue revitalization poised for final site plan approval

The Town Board will vote to approve the final site plan for the five-story mixed use building at the corner of Osborn Avenue and Court Street on Wednesday, making it the first project in the blighted Long Island Railroad station area to receive full approval since the town began revitalization efforts in the area last year.

The development, known as 205 Osborn, will include 37 market-rate rental apartments —  24 one-bedroom, 10 two-bedroom and three studio units — above ground-floor office space. The $19.6 million project was proposed by the Huntington-based G2D Group and will be built on the vacant property that was once home to a blighted former medical office located next to the Riverhead Free Library.

[See prior coverage: Blighted building demolished to make way for new development at 205 Osborn Avenue]

The board granted the project preliminary site plan approval in February, after holding a public hearing on Dec. 7.

[See prior coverage: Town board grants preliminary site plan approval to 5-story building on Osborn Avenue]

The project was the first proposed within 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 also adopted a Transit Oriented Development plan to guide revitalization of the area, which is home to state court buildings and offices, and began searching for a master developer. The town board named RXR and Georgica Green Ventures as master developers for the TOD in February. The developers 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 — with a public plaza on the side facing the train station. The project is one of ten being considered by a local advisory committee to receive funding through the Downtown Revitalization Initiative grant awarded to Riverhead this year.

[See prior coverage: Downtown advisory committee prioritizes projects, considers funding from $10M grant]

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.

The Town Board will also vote to extend the Riverhead Parking District to the property. A June 7 public hearing on the extension drew no comments.

The developers are also pursuing financial assistance from the Riverhead Industrial Development Agency, including a 10-year enhanced real property tax abatement, as well as mortgage tax and sales/use tax exemption. The developers said the project would “not be financially feasible” without IDA assistance. During last week’s Town Board work session, Chris Kent, an attorney for the developer, said they expect the IDA to approve the project’s financial assistance at the next meeting on July 11 at 5 p.m..