Riverhead seeks $24.6 million federal grant for downtown projects, including flood resiliency measures and 569-space parking garage

Riverhead Town is continuing its push for funding public projects downtown, including a 569-space parking garage on First Street, by pursuing $24.6 million through the U.S. Department of Transportation’s RAISE grant program. 

The town’s application, submitted in late February, would fund: a flood resiliency project on the Peconic Riverfront; the amphitheater and playground elements of the new town square; new streetscape lighting and signage improvements downtown; public Wi-Fi and new security cameras downtown; and roughly half the cost of the parking garage.

Community Development Director Dawn Thomas said in an interview last month that the grant funding would allow the town “to really stitch together everything that we’ve been doing.” 

While the $10 million Downtown Revitalization Initiative grant the town received from the state last year was a “game changer,” the RAISE funding “would be the icing on the cake in terms of allowing us to really get everything done, to the point where the taxpayers of Riverhead would be funding very little of it all, which would be fantastic,” Thomas said.

In the RAISE grant application, the town is requesting $10 million — the largest amount of funding for any project in the application — for the parking garage. The garage is expected to cost $20.3 million and is crucial to future development, Thomas said. Development plans for the riverfront town square currently call for construction in existing parking areas, and the town anticipates parking demands to increase when the town square is complete and more mixed-use development — with new apartments — are built, straining the capacity of the downtown parking district. 

“We can’t get the parking off the riverfront if we don’t replace the parking, and we need the parking [area] for the town square,” Thomas said. “And we hope we’re very busy downtown at some point soon, so those businesses will need that parking support.”

The town is in the process of doing a feasibility analysis of the parking garage with its economic development consultants, the National Development Council, which it retained in 2021 to analyze certain projects, including the town square. 

“We’ll find out at the end of June if we get this RAISE grant. If we do, then that’s really helpful. And then if not, there’s another structure that we would have to use that would be worked out with them,” Thomas said.

Besides the grant, the town is looking to generate money for the parking garage through direct payments from developers, Thomas said. There is also the possibility of the town building a parking garage on the parking district parking lot on the riverfront, Thomas said. The original proposal from town square master developer, J. Petrocelli Development Associates, proposed a condominium complex on the parking lot, but Thomas said those plans have been abandoned.

The second largest request for funding on the application is $6.1 million for improvements to streets in the downtown area to implement “complete streets” principals.

The town is slated to receive $750,000 from the Downtown Revitalization Initiative grant for improvements to a stretch of East Main Street between Roanoke and Maple avenues, including adding curb bump outs, enhancing crosswalks by lighting or raising them, and adding new street trees and landscaping. 

Funding through the RAISE grant would expand that project to improve pedestrian connectivity in the downtown area beyond Main Street, including for Roanoke Avenue, Railroad Avenue, Griffing Avenue, Osborn Avenue, Cedar Avenue and Court Street. The improvements would include new lighting and signage, in addition to improving sidewalks, crosswalks and the streetscape.

The application pitches the improvements to the streets as necessary to link the area near the Long Island Rail Road station — where two new mixed-use apartment buildings are planned and a third is already under construction — to the downtown riverfront for pedestrians and cyclists.

The application also seeks $424,420 to add public Wi-Fi and new cameras throughout the downtown area. An additional $90,000 would be used to purchase and install new Soofa digital signs around the downtown area; one Soofa sign has been purchased by the town already and was installed in front of the town square facing Main Street earlier this year.

“A system of coordinated signs will prove effective in the implementation of traffic demand management, parking and congestion management, as the signs will allow the efficient and equitable delivery of rail and bus schedules, available parking, road closures and emergency announcements, as well as reduce the need for personal vehicle trips,” the application states.

The town is also seeking funding of $5.6 million for flood resiliency for the town square project. The money would be used to undergo a project to raise the bulkhead height along the Peconic River along with Heidi Behr Way roughly 3 feet, according to Thomas. This would create, along with flood resistant buildings, a “flood wall” above the 100-year flood plain, according to the application. 

“Riverfront flooding threatens the long-term viability of downtown. Left unaddressed, the progress of sea level rise will make the historical buildings located on the south side of East Main Street uninhabitable and the parking lots and riverfront boardwalk inaccessible and unmaintainable. Worse yet, it will make Riverhead uninvestable,” the application reads.

A combined $2.3 million would go towards two projects in the town square: the public amphitheater and a park and playground. The projects have already received a total of $645,000 from state sources, including the DRI grant. Both those projects are also expected to receive $150,000 each from the master development agreement for the new town square, according to Thomas. 

This is the town’s fourth year applying for the federal DOT grant program, which under the Trump administration was known as BUILD.

Selections for which applicants have won the awards will be announced no later than June 28, according to the U.S. DOT’s website. Thomas believes the town has a good chance of getting the grant this year.

“I think our application is the best we’ve done thus far. Not only because I think we told the story better, but also because the projects are sort of closer to the ground now than they were before,” she said.

The application includes a cost-benefit analysis from the Long Island Center for Socio-Economic Policy and a dozen letters of support, including from Rep. Nick LaLota, the Long Island Rail Road and the Long Island Regional Economic Development Council. Thomas said Sen. Chuck Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand have sent letters of support for Riverhead’s application separate from the town’s submission.