The Rehabilitation Institute leases in Westbury

Long Island Business News, Mar 9, 2007 by Dawn Wotapka Hardesty

In one of the biggest leases announced in what has started off as a slow year, The Rehabilitation Institute has inked a deal for nearly 40,000 square feet of industrial space in Westbury.

The Institute will fill about a quarter of the 136,000-square- foot flex building at 123 Frost St. It currently has 27,000 square feet in Garden City and an office in Carle Place that it plans to keep.

The expansion was a "direct result of their success in creating employment services," said Seth Leiderman, who worked with colleagues Alan Rosenberg and Tommy Tsiolis to represent the tenant.

The institute provides job training and counseling to people with disabilities and offers everything from after-school activities to janitorial services.

Spiegel Associates' Paul Giossi helped the landlord fill a site that, several decades ago, housed Mr. Goodbuys, a lumber and hardware store similar to Home Depot, according to Cliff Sondock, Spiegel's director of leasing.

That a deal of this size would grab headlines demonstrates just how sluggish the market has become. Last year, there were several blockbuster transactions, including the sale of the 320,000-square- foot Honeywell portfolio in Syosset and North American Enclosures taking more than 105,000 square feet in Hauppauge.

Two-thousand-seven, however, has gotten off to a disappointing start.

"It is slow," Sondock said. "There's no question about that."

In addition to a scarcity of giant deals, Huttig Building Products Inc. recently announced it was shuttering its first Island distribution center in Hauppauge, leaving 125,000 square feet up for grabs.

Not to worry: In the last year or so, Long Island's industrial market has been sizzling. The purchase price has skyrocketed to more than $100 per square feet in some areas and vacancy rates are just above 6 percent. At the end of 2006, the region's industrial space was 6.66 percent vacant, according to Sutton & Edwards.

The submarket that includes Westbury, meanwhile, registers an even lower 5.74 percent, one of the Island's tightest areas.