The Riverhead Town Board will hold a special meeting Wednesday night for a public hearing on the proposed Peconic River Hotel, a five-story, 94-room hotel planned for East Main Street as part of the downtown town square project.
The hearing, scheduled for 6 p.m. June 10 at Town Hall, concerns the site plan and special permit applications filed by J. Petrocelli Riverhead Town Square LLC, the town’s designated master developer for the town square project. The meeting was called solely for the hearing.
The purpose of the hearing is to allow the Town Board to review the hotel site plan and special permit application, hear from the applicant, receive comments from town staff and outside agencies, and take public comment before deciding whether to approve, deny or modify the applications.
See Posted notice with meeting details, below.
The hotel is proposed for 117-127 E. Main St., on the south side of Main Street next to the planned town square and the East End Arts campus. The property is in the Downtown Center 1: Main Street zoning district, where hotels are allowed by special permit from the Town Board.
What the hotel plan includes
The current proposal calls for a 69,738-square-foot mixed-use building with hotel rooms on the upper floors and restaurant, retail and hotel-related uses at street level.
The first floor would include a 116-seat restaurant with a bar and terrace, an approximately 20-seat coffee shop, about 2,861 square feet of retail space, a hotel reception area and lobby, lounge/bar space, hotel kitchen and internal gym. The retail spaces would open toward the town square.
The upper four floors would contain 94 rooms and suites, including fifth-floor suites with balconies or terraces and some fourth-floor rooms with terraces overlooking East Main Street. The lower level would include nine parking spaces for hotel staff, along with laundry, storage, trash and mechanical areas.
The proposal replaces an earlier version reviewed as part of the town’s downtown revitalization environmental review that called for 76 hotel rooms and 12 condominium units. The current plan eliminates the condominiums and increases the number of hotel rooms to 94.
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What the Town Board is reviewing
Town planning staff and the town’s environmental consultant have said the change from the earlier hotel-condominium plan to the current 94-room hotel does not significantly alter the environmental issues previously reviewed for the downtown revitalization project.
See site plan and related documents below (presented May 14).
The town completed a coordinated environmental review of the overall downtown revitalization plan in 2025 and issued a negative declaration, finding the broader project would not result in significant adverse environmental impacts, subject to further review of individual component projects as their site plans were submitted.
For the hotel, that follow-up review focuses on whether the current site plan remains consistent with the prior environmental findings. The issues reviewed include flooding and stormwater mitigation, water and sewer capacity, traffic generation, parking, consistency with the town’s downtown design standards and construction logistics.
Town documents say the project is designed to work with the town square’s larger flood-mitigation strategy, which includes raising grades and using terraced public spaces between Main Street and the Peconic River. The hotel’s finished first-floor elevation would be 13.5 feet, and stormwater from the hotel site would be collected and directed to leaching galleys in the town square area designed to handle a two-inch rainfall.
Water and sewer service remain part of the site plan review. The town’s environmental consultant said letters of availability from the Riverhead Water District and Riverhead Sewer District should be provided before site plan approval. Planning documents also show that both districts’ consulting engineers have identified additional analysis and map-and-plan work needed before service is finalized, with costs to be borne by the developer.
Parking and traffic questions
Traffic and parking are also expected to be discussed. The applicant’s traffic analysis estimates the project would generate 158 vehicle trips during the weekday morning peak hour, 130 trips during the weekday evening peak hour and 165 trips during the Saturday peak hour.
The project is located within the town parking district, so the applicant is not required to provide all parking on site. The developer proposes nine staff parking spaces in the lower level and valet parking for hotel guests, with guest parking initially using spaces behind the Suffolk Theater and later shifting to the planned public parking garage.
The town’s environmental consultant and planning staff have asked for more information about how the valet system would work, including whether valet parking would also be required or optional for restaurant and retail patrons, how hotel guests would load and unload at the Main Street entrance without blocking traffic, and how guests arriving from the east would access the hotel and curbside valet service.
Planning staff said the hotel appears to comply with the purpose of the Downtown Center 1 zoning district, which is intended to support a traditional downtown character with pedestrian-friendly streetscapes, active ground-floor uses and a compact, walkable scale. Staff also said the application appears to follow the town’s downtown pattern book, including step-backs on the upper floors, large street-level windows, transparent storefronts and design features intended to reduce the apparent mass of the five-story building from Main Street.
How the project got here
The proposed hotel is one component of the larger town square redevelopment. The town acquired several East Main Street properties in 2021 for the purpose of creating a public gathering space with pedestrian connections and open views from Main Street to the Peconic River, along with compatible commercial, residential and retail development.
In 2022, the Town Board designated Petrocelli as master developer for the town square project. In August 2025, the board found J. Petrocelli Riverhead Town Square qualified and eligible to develop the hotel component and authorized the supervisor to enter into the master developer agreement. In October 2025, the board approved a pre-possession and lease agreement allowing the developer to begin preparing the hotel site, including demolition of the existing structure at 127 E. Main St., before closing on the property.
Public comment rules
According to the notice included in the agenda packet for Wednesday’s special meeting, public comments at the hearing are limited to three minutes. That limitation is contrary to the Town Board’s adopted rules of procedure, which state, “There shall be no set time limit for ‘public comment’ at Public Hearings, subject to the meeting chairperson’s discretion to impose a uniform limit in the interest of efficiency, “typically…for heavily attended hearings.”
Supervisor Jerry Halpin said in a phone call Monday morning the time limitation on public comments was included in error. The language should be included in notices pertaining to other comments, such as comments on resolutions or comments on any matter during the board’s open comment period, a portion of the hearing that takes place in Riverhead after all board business is concluded.
The hearing will be held at Riverhead Town Hall, 4 W. Second St. The town says the meeting may also be viewed on Optimum Channel 22, or on the town’s website (livestream and on-demand after the meeting) and by Zoom at this link or by phone at 1-929-205-6099, using the following credentials:
Webinar ID: 884 8532 2839
Password: 520451
Correction: One of the references to the upcoming special meeting erroneously said it was Tuesday. The meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, June 10.
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