Long Island Real Estate Briefs: September 14, 2007

Long Island Business News, Sep 14, 2007 by David Winzelberg

Is NYU considering a Long Island campus?

At the Association for a Better Long Island's get-together last week at the Maxwell & Dunne Steakhouse's Race Palace in Plainview, Island movers and shakers bet on the roast beef, while the fried shrimp was a close second.

But while mingling on the crowded balcony overlooking racing odds posted on giant screens, waiting for the results from Santa Anita, an even tastier morsel was overheard: Someone said New York University was buying Polytechnic University, a small school with a campus in Brooklyn and 11,000 square feet of leased spaced in Melville.

A Polytechnic spokesman confirmed that merger discussions with NYU have taken place, but said there was no deal to report.

Place your bets.

Seminar touts assistance for development projects

After finding out about cutting red tape on development, find out how to pay for those projects at Suffolk's Opportunity Calls business seminar, slated for Thursday at RexCorp Executive Park in Melville.

The county is sponsoring the event, which will attempt to spread the word about assistance programs for developers, including information about industrial development agencies, Empire Zones and housing incentives. Scheduled speakers include Scott Rechler of RexCorp, Robert Gordon of Brookhaven National Laboratory and Yacov Shamash of Stony Brook University.

Workforce housing on the stump at BNL

Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy and his commissioner of economic development and workforce housing, Jim Morgo, gave a presentation about the relationship between affordable housing and "brain drain" last week at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

On display were renderings of two housing proposals for the nearby, 255-acre Yaphank County Center property, one called Legacy Village and the other called the Villages at Carman's River.

Levy said he would like for Long Island to be known as a center for high-tech industry, and that workforce housing is essential to attract companies from the security, alternative energy and wireless technology sectors.

"You can't have economic growth unless you have housing that's affordable," Levy told the crowd of about 300 lab employees.

Affordable homes unveiled in Bridgehampton

Eight new affordable Bridgehampton homes - four detached homes and four attached town homes - were dedicated Monday by the Long Island Housing Partnership and representatives from the state, Suffolk County and Southampton Town.

The detached homes have three bedrooms and were sold for between $116,000 and $132,000 apiece. The three-bedroom townhouses sold for about $187,000 apiece; each comes with an accessory apartment.

Nearly 150 people applied for the homes. Eight were chosen by lottery in December. To qualify for a home in the Bridgehampton Mews development, candidates had to make a gross yearly salary of between $49,000 and $93,000, depending on family size.

Movers, shakers eye slow approval processes

According to national developers, it takes about three times longer to get a project built on Long Island than in most of the rest of the country.

To that end, leaders from government and business will talk Tuesday about ways to speed up the tedious approvals processes at the Milleridge Cottage in Jericho. The seminar is sponsored by Building Long Island magazine and is expected to feature County Executives Tom Suozzi and Steve Levy, Riverhead Supervisor Phil Cardinale, former Nassau County Executive Robert Gaffney and RexCorp chief Scott Rechler.

Real deals

* The 284-unit apartment complex in Holbrook known as Broadway Knolls has sold to ING for $71 million, the largest per-unit purchase price ever in Suffolk County, according to Robert Florea of Robert Florea Investment Realty in Melville, who represented the buyer. Matt Classi of GCP Capital Group in Great Neck consulted on the sale of the 26-acre development for the owner, Broadway Partners Development Group LLC of West Islip. Roger Delisle of Island Associates in Smithtown helped broker the sale for Broadway Partners.

* The 100-unit Winoka Manor Apartments in Huntington sold for over $14 million to a private family portfolio. Dylan Florea represented the seller, Millbrook Properties in Manhasset, and Christine Rotola represented the unnamed buyer. Both brokers are from Robert Florea Investment Realty.

* In yet another Florea deal, over $5 million was paid by Fairfield Properties for the 32-unit Northport Harbor Apartments on Main Street in Northport. Fairfield was represented by Robert and Dylan Florea, while the private seller was represented by Rotola and Guy Canzoneri, all from Robert Florea Investment Realty.