Riverhead looking at possibly moving police and justice court to town’s Second Street campus

The old Town Hall might not become the new town justice court after all.

Riverhead Town officials are considering moving both the police department and justice court to the town-owned West Second Street property purchased last year. 

The Town Board is looking at possibly moving the police and justice court, which currently share cramped quarters at 210 Howell Avenue, to the 4.5-acre Second Street campus, where the Riverhead Town Hall was relocated last September, Supervisor Tim Hubbard said. 

The campus, purchased from Peconic Bay Medical Center for $20 million in January 2023, includes three buildings besides the 36,000-square-foot, three-story Town Hall. The police station would occupy the M&T Bank branch building on the corner of West Second Street and Roanoke Avenue and the justice court would occupy the two-story “annex” building on the corner of West Second Street and Griffing Avenue, Hubbard said.

The idea is preliminary, he said, describing it as an idea town officials are currently “toying with.”

The town is also “looking at” the feasibility of renovating the old town hall at 200 Howell Avenue for a justice court, something the Town Board had identified as an option for relocating the justice court once the board decided in 2022 to buy the West Second Street property.

“We hired an architectural firm to look at the old town hall to see if it’s feasible to turn that into a court,” Hubbard said. He later clarified, saying the town had asked consultants H2M to assess the feasibility. 

“I know my predecessor named the court complex already,” Hubbard said, referring to former Supervisor Yvette Aguiar naming the building at 200 Howell Avenue in memory of the late Town Justice Allen Smith, “but that was probably premature,” he said. 

The building, a former supermarket, converted for use by town offices decades ago, has a host of known structural and systems issues in dire need of repair or replacement, including its roof, HVAC system and mold in the basement.  Repurposing it for justice court use will likely be a very costly proposition and may not make financial sense, Hubbard said.

He said the board thinks “it would cost so much that you’d have to rip it down, demolish it and then start over again.”

H2M is “in the process of giving us a report,” Hubbarrd said.

“We’re getting appraisals done on the current police department, on the old town hall, to see financially where it’s going to play out,” Hubbard said. “How much is that property worth? Versus, could we move everybody to one ideal location? And how much would that cost to retrofit the bank into a police department and the annex into a court,” Hubbard explained.

“We’d love to have one campus where everything is right there, and square footage-wise, it works out rather well,” he said.

Moving the police department to a more central downtown location would have public safety benefits sought by town officials, who have long discussed establishing a police substation in that area. The police station had been located on West Main Street before the move to Howell Avenue.

“I will tell you this. It’s not going to happen overnight,” he said. “We won’t start anything before the tail end of ’25. Financially we have to do that,” he said.

Hubbard’s remarks came in response to a question from a reporter at the “Meet the New Chief” session held Saturday at the Riverhead Senior Center in Aquebogue. 

On the heels of the discussion of moving the police department and justice court to the Second Street campus, Hubbard turned to town finances.

“I’m just going to forewarn you that our budget this year is going to pierce the cap.  There’s no, no question about that,” Hubbard said. 

Council Member Ken Rothwell made the same statement at last week’s Town Board meeting, when board members told community residents opposed to a proposal for resorts and spas north of Sound Avenue that residents need to accept more commercial development to increase the town’s tax base and hold the line on property taxes.

“But I refuse to cut corners when it comes to law enforcement,” Hubbard, a retired Riverhead Police detective, said Saturday. That includes adding more police officers and replacing some of the police department’s fleet of all-wheel-drive Ford Explorers with four-wheel-drive vehicles that are capable of driving on town beaches and through significant snow accumulations, he said.

Last year, the Town Board voted to override the 2% cap on the property tax levy increase and unanimously adopted the $69.4 million 2024 budget proposed by Aguiar, without changes. The 2024 budget called for a 5.5% spending increase over the 2023 budget and required a 4.86% tax levy increase.

Under state law, the supervisor’s tentative budget is required to be filed with the town clerk on or before Sept. 30.