SHORE THING
Major real estate projects with urban perks take over Long Island’s North Shore
WHEN Brooklynites David and Natalie Resto move into their new two-bedroom townhouse this month, they’ll have spiffy extras — like a swimming pool with a sun deck — minutes away by foot. They’ll also be able to walk to public transportation and a CrossFit gym. Yes, the Restos are moving to the ’burbs. Their just-purchased two-story home is part of Country Pointe Huntington, a multifamily development on Long Island’s North Shore located about an hour’s drive from their Brooklyn rental. The couple was lured by better pricing, quieter surroundings and the fact that — like when renting in the city — pretty much everything is taken care of.
“Some of the pluses of living there are that you don’t have to take care of the lawn or shovel snow,” David Resto says of his soon-tobe community, which has 76 townhouses and villas priced from $489,000, and is 80 percent sold. It’s located next to the Avalon Hunting- ton Station rental, which brought 303 units to the area in 2014. “We can walk to the train if we want to,” Resto adds.
These days, Long Island’s affluent North Shore — an area dominated by single-family homes — has at least six multi-family residential developments in progress. Of course, these structures — including buildings several stories high and compounds set behind private entrances — have dotted its landscape for decades, but properties currently under construction will flood the area with thousands more units in the coming years. Their arrival to market marks a definitive shift in local demand; more than ever, residents value hassle-free, city-style living that puts the urban in suburban. House-hunters “used to want a house, a yard and a white picket fence, but there’s a growing number of people who want to live on Long Island . . . [and] don’t want to deal with the maintenance of a single-family home,” says Steven Dubb, a principal at Beechwood Homes, developer of Country Pointe Huntington. Dubb adds walkability — say, proximity to a Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) station or a downtown with restaurants and shops — is a big lure for buyers these days.
So developers are trying to give them want they want — though not without pushback from existing residents. The result: a North Shore landscape in flux.
“We’ve been focused on [this] void in the market for about a decade,” says Frank Haftel, of RXR Realty, which is developing the $1 billion, 56-acre Garvies Point project on Glen Cove’s waterfront.
Last week, RXR announced that two residential structures there began construction. One of them, The Beacon — a 167-unit condominium — will have pads from $575,000. The other is a two-building, 385-unit rental called Harbor Landing that will contain studios through two-bedrooms. They’re poised to open in 2019. The site will also include 548 additional units across five other buildings, 28 acres of public open space and up to 75,000 square feet of shops and restaurants. Garvies Point, set to be fully completed in 2022, will stand just a quarter-mile — five NYC blocks — from downtown Glen Cove. A shuttle will
In the suburbs, city-style living is increasingly desirable. Workers broke ground last week at Garvies Point, a $1 billion project with condos, rentals, shops, restaurants, green space and easy access to downtown Glen Cove.
whisk residents to the LIRR for the hour-long ride to Penn Station, and an on-site ferry will provide trips to Manhattan.
“The idea here is to create a community that is integrated . . . but is also a brand-new, vibrant, walkable community,” Haftel says. (Commutes will only get easier. East Side Access, a $10 billion project that would connect LIRR lines to Grand Central as well as Penn, is currently slated for a 2022 completion.)
Also in the works is Syosset Park — a massive mixeduse complex proposed for Oyster Bay — which aims to bring 625 homes, 355,000 square feet of retail, two hotels and a 30-acre park to a single 93-acre swath just an hour by car from Midtown Manhattan. Its developers declined comment.
Suburban projects with urban amenities don’t have to be mega-developments. The 240-unit Ritz-Carlton Residences in North Hills, whose first phase opened in 2016, for example, has 10 homes on the market priced from $1.42 million. Within 20 miles from Manhattan — and within 5 miles of four LIRR stations — this development has a clubhouse with a gym, indoor pool, screening room and a bar, plus services including a 24-hour concierge and package delivery.
The 12-acre Roslyn Landing, which broke ground last May in upscale Roslyn, has 78 new-construction homes spanning two to four bedrooms from $1.4 million. Beyond its private clubhouse with a gym and billiards room, it’s within walking distance of the Bow Tie cinema and eateries including the popular Hendrick’s Tavern.
Close by, move-ins began at the 20-unit Roslyn Lumber Yard rental building, where 1,300-square-foot flats with floor-to-ceiling windows start at $4,275.
“It’s such a quaint and wonderful town, and almost everything you want is within walking distance,” says Douglas Elliman’s Wendy Sanders, who’s leading leasing at Roslyn Lumber Yard. “There’s not much more you can ask for.”
New Roslyn Lumber Yard tenant and recent South Florida transplant Michael West likes the big balcony that runs along his 1,600-squarefoot pad, but it helps to be just minutes on foot from nearby restaurants, which include Thyme and a gourmet market named Delicacies. It takes West, a surgeon, about 35 minutes to get to Penn Station on the LIRR.
“The town has a lot to offer,” West says. “You’re not in Midtown Manhattan, but you’re getting good variety.”
New York’s less-dense surrounds have long provided more square footage for the money. But buyers’ and renters’ preferences are redefining suburban real estate.
“Drivable sub-urban” new development (run-of-themill single-family homes) across the tri-state area has waned due to a pent-up demand for “walkable urban” projects (higher-density communities with nearby conveniences), according to a report from George Washington University’s Center for Real Estate & Urban Analysis released last week.
The research team also concluded that, on Long Island, walkable-urban development isn’t happening to the extent it should or could.
Perhaps that’s due to the longtime resistance to multifamily housing out east. A strong desire to keep Long Island real estate short and spread out spurred opposition to proposed larger developments over the years — many call it “The Land of No.” It follows that Long Island’s new multi-family communities are not without their critics.
Take Garvies Point, which was the target of several lawsuits filed in 2015 by residents of Glen Cove and nearby Sea Cliff. They cited the potential for negative side effects — like increased traffic and noise pollution — and allegations from now-former Sea Cliff Mayor Bruce Kennedy that Glen Cove broke a written agreement signed in 2000 that would limit the development’s size to 700,000 square feet. (When completed, Garvies Point will have 1.8 million square feet of real estate.) A state Supreme Court justice dismissed the complaints in August 2016, but The Post has learned the plaintiffs will head back to court on appeal in May.
“It’s going to adversely affect the quality of life of everyone on the North Shore,” Kennedy says. “We’re asking that the court enforce the [2000] agreement.”
RXR, for its part, maintains the claims are “meritless.”
Other locals, meanwhile, see the need for more housing along this northern stretch of Long Island, but would like to see a better preservation of its bucolic character. Huntington native Nick Voulgaris III, who owns the 2013-opened countrystyle shop and café Kerber’s Farm, is one of them.
Downtown Huntington, where he would hang out with friends growing up, has 1. Ritz-Carlton Residences, North Hills 2. Roslyn Lumber
Yard 3. Roslyn Landing 4. Garvies Point 5. Syosset Park 6. Kerber’s Farm 7. Avalon Huntington Station 8. Country Pointe
Huntington a handful of low-slung buildings with additional floors of apartments tacked on top — not all of them attractive. Real estate development that could add sophistication and modern conveniences to the area while also keeping green space open and intact seems like a fair compromise. “It may not necessarily be a bad thing,” he says — and he would know.
Though his store is now surrounded by three McMansions, Voulgaris purchased its 2-acre plot — formerly a shop that sold chickens — where developers previously pitched projects with residential and commercial components. His goal in opening Kerber’s Farm was to honor the site’s history, which dates back to 1941, while offering better groceries and food than nearby strip-mall options.
“You could’ve bulldozed it and built houses,” Voulgaris says. “I had a lot of passion about something with a lot of history . . . [and wanted] to create something for the community.”
“You’re not in Midtown Manhattan, but you’re getting good variety.” — Michael West