Riverhead Town Board members heard two pitches Thursday from groups interested in buying, renovating and operating the historic Vail Leavitt Music Hall downtown.
The Jazz Loft, a nonprofit organization which restored a historic building in Stony Brook built in the 1770s into a performance venue and music museum, is one of the Town Board’s suitors. Its president and founder, Thomas Manuel, said the organization’s experience in the music industry and restoring a historic property can make the Vail-Leavitt the “crown jewel” of Riverhead’s Main Street.
“A major focus would be on presenting art programming and music of ranging styles of performance,” Manuel said. “And additionally, as part of this mission, the venue would also serve as an incubator for educational and events and collaborations with area arts organizations and businesses, and would serve as a home to other events and activities which would promote and serve the community at large.”
“The vision is really to create a hub of activity to serve the community and to embody your town slogan, which is ‘work, stay, play, eat and live,’” he added.
| PRIOR COVERAGE: Riverhead in talks to lease Vail-Leavitt Music Hall to Stony Brook’s Jazz Loft, town officials say |
The other choice is The Zenith Group, a Riverhead-based development firm led by Ray Castronovo, a musician. Castronovo, a member of the town’s Business Advisory Committee, said he has experience restoring old buildings and connections to the music industry that can make the theater successful.
“I’m very, very savvy in the music industry, and I know a lot of people in the music industry,” Castronovo said.
“The goal of all this is that on the financial end, I have the horsepower to get this where it is and then have it operate and be sustainable,” Castronovo said. “If I grab the opportunity, I want to make the Vail-Leavitt proud and bring it back to life.”
The Jazz Loft offered to purchase the building for $150,000, while Castronovo offered the town $205,000, Supervisor Tim Hubbard said after the meeting.
It wasn’t clear after the presentation whether the board was leaning toward one organization or the other as a potential purchaser of the historic theater.
On the board’s mind was whether each organization could effectively restore and manage the theater. The Vail-Leavitt Music Hall is within the East Main Street Urban Renewal Area, which allows the town to convey property it owns in the area to a developer for reuse without a competitive bidding process. The organization the Town Board chooses will need to go through the qualified and eligible sponsor hearing, where the firm will have to prove they have the experience and financial capability to restore and manage the theater.
The Vail-Leavitt was “not maintained, and there’s a tremendous amount of repair that needs to be done,” Community Development, Planning and Building Administrator Dawn Thomas said. The Vail-Leavitt was built as an upstairs opera house in 1881; it’s on both the national and state registers of historic places, as well as being a town landmark.
The question for the board is: “[W]ho’s the best partner for the Town Board in creating the economic environment that you want to see in the downtown?” Thomas said.
The Jazz Loft puts on sold-out shows that bring hundreds of people into communities, Manuel said. “What the data has shown is that those people that come, those are the people that are going to go out to eat and have dinner at your restaurants before or after,” he said. “Those are the people that are going to come and make a weekend out of it, stay at your hotels. Programming that is of a high quality, that is consistent, that is reliable, is a benefit to communities.”
The Jazz Loft has a “very strong relationship” with the region’s tourist organizations, Stony Brook University, local arts organizations like the East End Arts Council and the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation — one of Long Island’s biggest grant contributors to historic preservation projects, Manuel said.
Depending on how quickly the town can proceed, renovations on the building could start at the beginning of this summer and be completed in November, Manuel said.
Manuel said the collaboration with the town is reliant on state grant funding. “The funding that we would be putting forth would be to purchase the building; that would be our investment,” he said. The Jazz Loft has “invested very strongly over the last decade in building a strong philanthropic support system,” he said.
Castronovo said the Vail-Leavitt would not rely on grant funding if he owned the building.
“I want to try to get this open sooner than later,” Castronovo said, adding that he already has a sound system ready to be installed.
“I hire people who are experts to handle all the different tasks, to run the theater,” he said. Castranovo said he has a close relationship with The Suffolk Theater’s director, Gary Hygom, and would work with him.
The programming at the Vail-Leavitt would be diverse under his watch, Castronovo said. In addition to concerts, Castronovo said he wants to have kids entertainment, acting classes, special events and other programs at the Vail-Leavitt. He said he also wants to build a podcast studio.
The Vail-Leavitt would be a “destination” that would bring kids and families into Riverhead, Castronovo said.
“One of the things I pride myself on is all the different community groups and individuals that use the space of The Jazz Loft for different things that support the community,” Manuel said. “And I believe that that should be the case at the Vail — and philosophically as a musician and as an educator, I feel like that should be the philosophy and approach of every theater that exists.”
Council Member Ken Rothwell asked both organizations if they would be interested in participating in music festivals and other events downtown, including those at the riverfront amphitheater being planned as a part of the town square project.
Manuel said the organization would be willing to collaborate. “I guess what I just want to be clear on is I would not want to proceed with a venue that didn’t have a real clear vision for programming,” he said. “But I do feel like any music that communicates honestly and genuinely speaks powerfully, which is why we all resonate and speak to music. And I’m always open for collaborations; that’s the nature and spirit of jazz.”
Castronovo said he has played in the Blues Festival before and has “connections with all genres of music and all the festivals.”
“We’re open to helping and supporting all that,” he said.
Merrifield said she saw a performance programmed by The Jazz Loft with a Broadway performer. “She was just amazing,” Merrifield said. “Would you bring those types of artists here in the Riverhead?”
“Absolutely,” Manuel said. The Jazz Loft has hosted award-winning artists; Riverhead’s proximity to New York City makes that possible, he said.
Council Member Bob Kern, during Castronovo’s presentation, said Castronovo also has connections with people from Broadway. “You had mentioned you can get [performances] that people pay $200 to $500 a seat to see. Because it’s a small theater, a small venue, and it lends itself to that,” Kern said.
Castronovo said he knows one of the top vocal instructors for Broadway performers. “When you see these types of people starting to come to the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall, there’s going to be an opportunity for a lot of people to follow,” he said.
The town only last year took back possession of the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall, which it bought in 1980. In 1982, the town gave the theater to a nonprofit group, the Council for the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall, formed in 1982 to operate the theater as a performing arts venue.
Thomas said the Council for the Vail-Leavitt “attempted to succeed, but failed miserably” in its effort to operate the theater. The council’s board quit and surrendered the organization and the Vail-Leavit to the town shortly after the town sued to try to take the building back using a “reverter clause” in the deed from the town to the Council for the Vail-Leavitt.
Town officials had said they were looking for new board members for the Vail-Leavitt but there was no interest with the amount of debt the organization was in. The town decided to dissolve the Council for the Vail-Leavitt and find an entity to operate and renovate it.
The Council for the Vail-Leavitt was awarded a $250,000 grant from Suffolk County in November 2023 to repair and restore the building; town officials have said the grant will be transferable to the entity that takes possession of the building.
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