Five-story Zenith Building addition gains preliminary site plan approval

A five-story building addition on the corner of East Main Street and McDermott Avenue gained preliminary site plan approval from the Riverhead Town Board Tuesday.

The addition at 301 East Main Street would expand the four-story Zenith Building at 12 McDermott Avenue, which was granted final site plan approval in July 2023.

The proposed addition would add 900 square feet of ground-floor commercial space and six apartments on the upper floors. The addition will connect to the previously approved building on the second through fifth floors, leaving a ground-floor easement and access area clear to provide access and utility easements for a neighboring property owner to the east, according to town planning documents.

The overall development will now have 15 apartments —eight two-bedroom units, six one-bedroom units and one three-bedroom unit — and approximately 3,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space on a 0.18-acre site.

The site is located within the Riverhead Parking District and is therefore exempt from on-site parking requirements.

Supervisor Jerry Halpin abstained from the vote Tuesday, saying he was not on the board during review of the application and citing Pattern Book guidance against five-story buildings.

The proposed addition was described at different stages of the review process as both a four-story and a five-story addition.

The site plan application dated Feb. 25, 2025, and signed by Raymond Castronovo as a member of an LLC “12 McDermott LLC.” The application also states that 12 McDermott LLC owns the property at 301 East Main Street. Public records filed with the Suffolk County Clerk show the 301 East Main Street parcel is owned by 1146 Main Road LLC, another company affiliated with Castronovo, which purchased the property on Dec. 2, 2021.

The application is also signed by Riverhead architect Martin Sendlewski, who prepared and signed the site plan drawings, originally dated Feb. 26, 2025.

The site plan application describes the proposal as a four-story addition. The drawings accompanying the application label the proposed structure as a “four story addition.”

Those same drawings, however, also depict a “penthouse” level above the fourth-floor apartments, connected to the apartments below by internal stairways. The penthouse is not labeled as a fifth floor on the February 2025 plans.

The application and plans were discussed by the Town Board with Senior Planner Greg Bergman, Sendlewski and Castronovo on June 26, 2025. Bergman at that meeting presented his staff report — which, like the application and drawings before the board at the work session, also described the proposal as a four-story addition. See: Zenith Group seeks to add apartments, commercial space to already-approved plan

There was no mention during the June 26 work session of a penthouse level or a fifth floor.

There was also no discussion that the uppermost level shown on the plans added bedrooms to the fourth-floor apartments, creating a three-bedroom unit and an additional two-bedroom apartment.

The only discussion at the work session centered on the plan’s lack of on-site parking.

At some point after the work session, Sendlewski submitted revised drawings with a revision date of July 15, 2025. Those drawings label the project as a five-story addition and identify the uppermost level as a fifth floor.

On Sept. 16, the Town Board scheduled a public hearing on the site plan application. Both the resolution scheduling the public hearing and the notice of hearing authorized by the resolution described the building as five stories.

The resolution was “taken off the floor” at the Sept. 16 meeting, meaning it was not included in the agenda packet published in advance of the meeting. The board adopted the resolution without comment. Bergman acknowledged Wednesday that the change from a four-story description to a five-story description was not publicly discussed before the hearing was scheduled.

At the site plan hearing, which was held Oct. 7, Bergman introduced the application as a five-story addition. No Town Board member questioned that description or referenced the earlier four-story characterization used at the June 26 work session.

Bergman said Wednesday that his initial description of the project as a four-story addition was an error caused by confusion over the preliminary plans — including the application’s description of it as four stories and the drawings’ depiction of a penthouse without further explanation. 

“I’m only human,” Bergman said. “I made a mistake.”