Stony Brook Medicine gets key approvals from town on building plan at site once slated for Amazon Fresh

The Brookhaven Town Board has issued key approvals allowing Stony Brook Medicine to take over a building that had been slated for an Amazon Fresh grocery store and to build an office building in a Farmingville business complex.

In all, Stony Brook Medicine will occupy about 65,000 square feet of space at the Holmesview Commons retail complex, which wraps around a gas station at the northeast corner of North Ocean Avenue and Horseblock Road.

The healthcare chain, affiliated with Stony Brook University Hospital, will take over the 35,000-square-foot building that had been built for Amazon Fresh before the grocer announced last year it was abandoning the project.

Stony Brook also plans to build a new 30,000-square-foot office building on the southern part of the retail complex along Horseblock Road, Brookhaven Town Planning Director Don Hohn said Thursday at a town board meeting to discuss the project.

The Brookhaven Town Board on Thursday voted 7-0 to waive covenants and some parking requirements for the hospital facilities. No speakers appeared at a public hearing before the vote.

Construction is expected to start next year, with occupancy planned for 2028, Sharon Meinster, assistant vice president of facilities planning and design at Stony Brook Medicine, said Friday in an email.

In a statement, Meinster said the Farmingville facility "will expand access to comprehensive primary and specialty outpatient care in a convenient community-based setting. The space will support Stony Brook Medicine’s ability to bring a broad range of coordinated services closer to patients and families, creating a welcoming destination for high-quality care while strengthening access to services within the community."

She did not respond to Newsday questions about the project's cost, the number of jobs it would create and what services would be provided at the facility.

The hospital project marks a major expansion of the Stony Brook Medicine chain as well as a striking departure for Holmesview Commons, which originally had been planned as a retail location.

Other future tenants planned for the complex include Panera Bread, a Bojangles chicken restaurant and a mini storage facility.

The property is owned by North Block Ventures LLC in Islandia. An "agreement in principle" had been reached with Stony Brook Medicine, North Block Ventures and Stony Brook's real estate partner, JLL, Stony Brook Medicine said in a statement last month.

One covenant waived by the town board Thursday had called for development of a village green in the spot where the Stony Brook Medicine office building will be built. Hohn said plans to build the village green never materialized and civic leaders lost interest in the project.

"No one's really in love with that idea anymore," he said.

Construction of the building slated for Amazon Fresh was completed in 2023, but the grocer never moved in, Newsday previously reported.

In a social media statement last month, Brookhaven Supervisor Dan Panico said the Stony Brook Medicine proposal "presents an opportunity to put this vacant property to productive use while bringing expanded medical services and significant investment to our community."