BJ’s plans expansion of Riverhead store, with new 16-vehicle gas station

BJ’s is planning to expand its wholesale club in Riverhead with more space and a new on-site gas station, according to an application filed with the town’s Planning Department.

BJ’s intends to expand its existing 191,348-square-foot club another 10,530 square feet and add a 16-vehicle gas station, according to the application. The expansion would be built on the north side of the building, on what is currently a parking area.

BJ’s is located in East End Commons, a shopping center on the eastern end of the Route 58 commercial corridor; it shares that shopping center with the Office of the Suffolk County Department of Social Services and Box Pickleball, a pickleball club and restaurant. 

According to the application, construction on the project is expected to be completed by early 2026. The project has not yet been in front of the Planning Board.

BJ’s currently operates an eight-vehicle gas station a half-mile west of the BJ’s Wholesale Club on Route 58, at the southeast corner of the Route 58 and Ostrander Avenue intersection. The station is available only to the wholesale club’s members and often offers gas prices lower than other stations in the area, making it a popular spot to fuel up. 

However, the configuration of the station, which sits on a .66 acre lot, makes it difficult to navigate and has caused adjacent roads to experience traffic congestion during peak hours. Last week, representatives from BJ’s presented to the Riverhead Planning Board a plan aimed at resolving those issues. 

The plan calls for removing a landscaped area near the entrance on Ostrander Avenue, which officials said would eliminate a “choke point” and create more space for vehicles to access the pumps. That egress point, which is both an entrance and an exit, would be designated solely an entrance. 

In addition, the entrance to the gas station on Route 58 — which has already been blocked off by traffic cones — would also be permanently closed. 

“We’re no longer going to create differing traffic circulation so people get jumbled,” said Chris Bizogno of R&M Engineering, the architect for the project. 

With the new configuration, drivers heading westbound on Route 58 out of the gas station would exit out of the northernmost egress on Ostrander Avenue and use the traffic light, while drivers heading eastbound can use the egress on Route 58, Riverhead Senior Planner Greg Bergman said. He said drivers who want to head south on Ostrander Avenue would exit off of Route 58 and use a driveway along the Firestone Tires building, to another internal roadway for access to Ostrander Avenue.

Bergman said there would be “a little bit of a learning curve” after the changes are implemented. “But I think once people get the hang of it, it will really free up that congestion that happens on Ostrander,” he added.

Bergman recommended that the Planning Board require a future cross-access easement on the southeastern part of the gas station property. This would allow for an exit-only egress point to be built if the neighboring property owner would trigger decides to develop in the future, he said.

“Obviously, we can’t compel that neighboring property owner to the east to construct the cross access at this point,” Bergman said. “But if they come in down the road for any type of site plan, we would capture that at that point, and then that would just eliminate people going on to 58 to come back to Ostrander.”

BJ’s officials did not indicate whether their lease of the Ostrander Avenue gas station would remain once the new one is completed. Kent referred questions about the future of the current gas station to the BJ’s communications team, which did not return an email requesting comment before this article was published.