L.I. Science Center: Town is obstructing museum plans, as Riverhead inches closer to taking Main Street building 

The Long Island Science Center’s president says Riverhead officials are obstructing the organization’s plans to build a new museum on East Main Street, as the Town Board moves a step closer towards taking the nonprofit’s property using eminent domain.

LISC President Larry Oxman said in an interview on Monday that town officials have blocked the necessary permits and repairs to restore the building at 111 East Main Street, formerly occupied by Swezey’s Department Stores, into a new science museum. He said town officials refuse to work with the organization and are dead set on taking the property and selling it to a developer to create a new five-story building on the town square.

“I feel terrible. I don’t know if that’s the best word, but I think it’s a shame,” Oxman said of the town pursuing the eminent domain. “I think it’s a real disservice to the community, and quite frankly, it’s contrary to everything up until this point,”

Town building and planning officials, in documents posted online and acquired through Freedom of Information Law, say the building is severely damaged and a “danger to the public.” It has used those determinations to deny LISC the permits necessary to restore the building and open a museum for more than a year, according to the documents. 

“[The building is] about to fall down, according to [the town], and it’s not even close,” Oxman said. “[W]e have been trying to repair the building and get our building permits, and the town has done nothing but stop us.”

The town’s Building Department issued a notice of violation to LISC on Nov. 21, 2023, calling the building a “possible unsafe structure” and asking the science center to remedy the violation. Town documents say the interior of the building has a “significant amount of damage,” while the exterior has “gaps in the foundation, walls, and flooring, with crumbling bricks and concrete with large vertical and horizontal cracks and a collapsing soffit, all of which is a danger to the public.”

The science center tried to do what it considered ordinary repairs on the building, but was slapped with a stop work order last August from the Riverhead Building Department, according to documents. The building department said LISC needed a permit to do the work. 

The town intends to take the building using eminent domain, and sell or lease the property to a developer with the condition that the building be demolished and the property used within the goals of its downtown revitalization plans, according to a document prepared by the town in December for the environmental review of the action. The sale to a developer could result in a large-scale mixed-use building like the condominium/hotel proposed for the other side of the town square, according to the document. 

LISC officials say the town is wrong in its assessment of the building’s condition. A structural evaluation in January by Pacifico Engineering, commissioned by LISC and shared with RiverheadLOCAL, says the building is structurally sound.

“Yeah, there’s a couple of things that have to be done,” Oxman said, acknowledging the need for repairs. “But throughout this report, it repeats constantly that there’s no structural significant damage, which is very different than the picture that the Planning Department or Community Development [Department] is trying to portray.” 

LISC Trustee Jeff Zahn, an architect, sent a copy of the report and a letter to the Riverhead Building Department on behalf of the organization’s board on March 6. 

“We do not believe that the information that’s being presented to the Town Board is accurate,” Oxman said. “I don’t know whether the Town Board is aware of this communication or not, and so I think that this is kind of critical.”

Zahn argues in the letter against the Building Department’s reasoning for rejecting the LISC’s permit application. The building has not sustained “substantial damage” from flooding, as defined by state building codes, Zahn argues. The building qualifies as substantially damaged only if the cost of its repairs equal or exceeds half of its market value; the repairs to the building, based on both Riverhead Town and an outside broker’s valuation of the property, do not exceed that threshold, Zahn’s letter said.

Oxman said the LISC has not received a response from the town since sending the letter.

When asked about the town’s eminent domain action to acquire the LISC building in an interview earlier this month, Council Member Ken Rothwell said he thinks there are “genuine concerns about that structure sitting next to a new town square” if the science center doesn’t “have the ability to build.” 

“I wish the science center would produce the initial plans that they brought forward early on in the process,” Rothwell said. “When we were developing a town square, Larry Oxman put out some beautiful renderings of what could be there. I would like to see a project of that magnitude take place there…”

Supervisor Tim Hubbard did not return calls requesting an interview for this story. In an email in response to questions, he wrote “the property at 111 East Main St is involved in a legal action at the moment, the Town is not poised to make a comment.” He did not respond to a follow-up email requesting comment on Oxman’s statements. 

Oxman said LISC has funds to complete renovations on the building enough to “open our doors and start operating and bringing in school groups” this coming fall. Right now, the science center is operating out of a storefront at Tanger Outlets and has had to turn away large school groups because of the limited space, he said.

“One of the reasons why our group chose to be in Riverhead was to be a complement to the aquarium, which would just be an economic boost to the vitality of the downtown. That’s always been out on the table,” Oxman said. “So why the town would prefer to see another hotel or another five story building, apartments, condos — what does that really do to the downtown? Does it really help them economically? Does it create tourist attractions? Does it create some type of entertainment? And the answer is no.”

“The real question is for the Town Board: Do they want kids or do they want condos?” Oxman said.

The science center has been excluded from stakeholder and planning meetings for the town square and downtown since it failed to get a piece of Riverhead’s $10 million Downtown Revitalization Initiative state grant, Oxman said. (Oxman, a real estate broker, attended some meetings as a member of the Riverhead Business Improvement District Management Association Board, he said.) 

“We believe that we’ve been purposefully left out, not invited to the table, because of what the town wants to do, and that’s that they want to take our building,” he said.

Oxman said the town’s activities surrounding eminent domain have created an “unfair hardship” on the science center’s board in fundraising or obtaining financing to build the museum.

While officials said the LISC museum was key to the town square’s success, uncertainty about the organization’s plan to fund its construction loomed large in 2022, during the local process to decide which projects should be funded by the $10 million state grant. Former Supervisor Yvette Aguiar had raised questions about the science center’s financial ability to build the museum project in 2022. 

In response to a question about the financial ability of the organization to build the museum, Oxman said grants obtained by Suffolk County and New York State enable the organization to start a phased construction plan. An entrance to the science center on the town square — what town officials envisioned in planning the town square years ago, is not possible right away, Oxman said, but would be in the future. 

The Town Board will take up a resolution Tuesday night to complete the environmental review necessary for the eminent domain action. It will vote to adopt a document known as a Final Environmental Assessment Form, which analyzed the environmental impacts of several projects related to downtown revitalization, including the public and private development of the town square, and the construction of a multi-story parking garage. Town officials said in November that construction of the town square could start as soon as this summer; however, benchmarks for the project, most prominently a public-private partnership agreement with the designated master developer of the town square, have not been completed on the schedule outlined in November.

Oxman said he plans on attending the meeting and speaking on the science center’s behalf.

In 2020, the LISC bought 111 East Main Street, the former home of Swezey’s Department Stores, to construct a new museum right next to where town officials wanted to build a town square. The museum was made a major part of the town square design used to obtain state grants like the Downtown Revitalization Initiative. It and the town square were seen as attractions that would bring families from the Long Island Aquarium to the heart of Riverhead’s Main Street business district.  

After the town won the $10 million Downtown Revitalization Initiative grant, officials were tasked with making recommendations for which projects would get a piece of the award. State officials required the local planning committee to recommend more than the $9.7 available for the state to fund. The local planning committee recommended LISC get $1 million; it was granted nothing. 

Former Supervisor Yvette Aguiar had acted hostile to the organization during local planning committee meetings, raising doubts about whether it had enough funding. At a June 28, 2022 local planning committee meeting, Aguiar accused LISC officials of lacking transparency. At the local planning committee meeting of July 18, 2022, Aguiar accused the science center of not providing its business plan to town — a misapprehension corrected by a state project consultant — and said she was “very concerned” about the future of the project.

In November 2023, Aguiar further accused Oxman of being uncooperative with the town and delaying the property’s development. Oxman denied the allegation. Aguiar revealed then that the town was considering an eminent domain action to acquire the building, and had authorized an appraisal for that purpose.

The science center property had been listed for sale on the commercial real estate site Loopnet, for $3.45 million, which Oxman explained was done in the hope of attracting a developer interested in a purchase and leaseback agreement with the science center, shifting responsibility for the redevelopment to a private business. The listing is no longer being advertised on the website; Oxman said there was little interest from developers.

In May 2024, the Town Board authorized and directed the town attorney to take all such actions “necessary and appropriate” to acquire the science center’s property at 111 East Main Street. The necessary petition to start the eminent domain proceeding for the property has not been filed with the Suffolk County Supreme Court as of Tuesday afternoon.