A plan for 300 apartments at former Kmart site in Middle Island gains traction

Garden City developer Wilbur Breslin is proposing a mixed-use development in Middle Island calling for nearly 300 rental apartments, a grocery store, two restaurants and a park with ballfields and a walking trail.

The project, called the Meadows at Artist Lake, would be built on the Middle Country Road site of a Kmart department store that closed two decades ago. What remained of the store was torn down about 10 years ago after the body of a gunshot victim was found nearby, Newsday previously reported.

Breslin and his firm, Breslin Realty Development Corp., had cited plans to develop the 74-acre site when it rejected multiple offers from Suffolk County to purchase the property for a potential park.

The new proposal requires a Brookhaven Town zoning change. And because it lies within the environmentally sensitive pine barrens, where development is severely restricted, it may need a so-called "hardship waiver" from the Central Pine Barrens Joint Planning and Policy Commission, which supervises the 105,000-acre preserve in Brookhaven, Riverhead and Southampton towns.

Hardship waivers are awarded if developers can show pine barrens restrictions are unduly harsh and their project's public benefits outweigh environmental concerns. 

Brookhaven Supervisor Dan Panico, who sits on the Pine Barrens Commission board with the Riverhead and Southampton town supervisors and Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine, said he expects the commission to issue a ruling “in the next couple of months.”

“This property needs to be redeveloped and has sat far too long as an eyesore,” he said Friday in a phone interview. 

Development of the site predated the law that preserves the pine barrens.

Breslin Realty president Ken Breslin said Friday in an email the company was "aware of all Pine Barrens Commission requirements and intend to fully comply with them." He added the project was "early in the application process" and declined to comment further.

Restaurants, grocery part of plan

The proposal calls for 295 housing units in six multistory buildings; about half the units would be reserved for residents 55 and older, town and pine barrens commission officials said.

The project also includes two restaurants, a 104,000-square-foot grocery store with fuel pumps and a 29,000-square-foot park with ballfields, walking trails and basketball courts, officials said. About 29½ acres would be preserved as open space.

Brookhaven Councilman Michael Loguercio said he supports the plan because it would clean up a notorious eyesore. The property is still cluttered with asphalt and concrete from the department store, he added.

“I like the project,” he said Thursday in a telephone interview. “It’s nice to see something is going to happen there. And I think it’s going to be a great project for the community.”

Part of the property currently is zoned for residential uses and part of it for commercial uses, Loguercio said. The town will consider rezoning the entire property as a planned development district that allows both housing and retail, he said.

'Eager for a solution'

The site has a troubled history, including the discovery of a gunshot victim in a wooded section of the parcel in April 2016. The vacant Kmart was torn down days later; the demolition had been scheduled before the body was found, officials said at the time.

Gail Lynch-Bailey, president of the Middle Island Civic Association, said she supports the project but has reservations about the fuel pumps.

“There’s still some things on it that we found surprising,” Lynch-Bailey said, referring to the gas pumps. But she said the proposal is an improvement over Breslin's previous plans for the site, which called for as many as 600 housing units.

“We have been eager for a solution for that [property]. That’s the largest blighted property in Middle Island," Lynch-Bailey said in a phone interview last week. "A mixed-use project is something we have always asked for, and this delivers on that.”