As the sounds of the Christmas carol “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” wafted through the chilly air of downtown Riverhead Friday afternoon, workers began demolishing a downtown building to make way for a Hilton Tapestry Collection hotel at the edge of the new Riverhead Town Square.
The demolition was part of the groundbreaking ceremony for the Town Square, held just outside of a construction fence adjacent to a pile driver that’s been there awaiting the start of work since October.
The ceremony was attended by dignitaries from New York State, which has provided grant funding to help realize the $32.6 million project, county and regional economic development officials, the press and Riverhead Town employees.
“Downtown in a place like Riverhead, or a place like Buffalo, the goal’s the same. You want to bring residents to the downtown area, you want to make it inviting, you want to make it walkable, and you want to take advantage of the assets there,” New York State Secretary of State Walter T. Mosley told The Beacon at the ceremony. “More vibrant areas mean more successful small businesses and creating jobs.”
Mr. Mosley said that community engagement is the key to the success of these types of projects.
“Planning councils, small business owners, longtime residents, they’re really the lifeblood of this program,” he said. “They’re the ones who tell us what is needed, because they’ve been here, they know what they need. They know what has failed. They know what can succeed.”
“This Town Square will transform a cluster of underused Main Street properties into a vibrant public space that connects our downtown to the Peconic River,” said Riverhead Town Supervisor Tim Hubbard. “It will include an upper and lower plaza, an amphitheater, improved street scapes, and family friendly amenities that create a true gathering place for residents, visitors, and businesses alike. The input from all of these groups has been the key to developing a plan that will benefit everyone.”
Representatives of other downtown businesses have applauded the project, speaking up in favor of it at a hearing this summer to designate J. Petrocelli Contracting, the developers of several other amenities in downtown Riverhead, as the project’s master developer.
But many members of the public have been skeptical of the deal, which didn’t initially include a hotel.
The hotel will be on property transferred from the town to J. Petrocelli as part of the deal for $2.6 million. It’s slated to include 76 hotel rooms rooms, 12 penthouse condos on the fifth floor, three retail shops and a restaurant facing onto the Town Square, and parking spaces for the condos under the building.
The town has received a significant amount of grant funding for the project, including $4.2 million in New York State Downtown Revitalization Grant funding, $1.4 million for the amphitheater through the state’s Pro-Housing Community program as part of $3.2 million awarded by the State Department of State, $400,000 in Brownfield Opportunity Area funding and $500,000 from New York State Parks and Historic Preservation.
The project has also received a $24.1 million federal Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity Grant, $2.4 million in Suffolk County Jumpstart funding and $97,500 in Suffolk County Downtown Revitalization funds.
Both New York’s Empire State Development Corporation Chair Kevin Law and State Assemblywoman Jodi Giglio remembered first having a look at the site from the roof of the Suffolk Theater in 2020, when the state first awarded the town a grant for the project.
Ms. Giglio reminded the crowd that, since that time, two buildings have been torn down to give a viewscape from the Peconic River up to the marquee of The Suffolk Theater.
“For 25 years, we looked at blighted, unoccupied buildings in downtown, and every town board along the way has focused on taking those buildings down and creating community spaces and making it so that our downtown is walkable, enjoyable, and people want to come,” she said.
“I think it’s going to be enormous. It brings you down onto the waterfront, which is a huge asset for the town,” said former Greenport Mayor Dave Kapell, who now serves on the board of the state’s mortgage agency, who was at the ceremony. “There are going to be play areas for the kids. It’s going to be a game-changer.”
Mr. Kapell, who was responsible for the construction of Greenport’s Mitchell Park, long credited with the revitalization of Greenport during his tenure as mayor, said Greenport’s waterfront redevelopment “was a gamble, but it seemed like it made sense, and ultimately it did.”
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