CIN
09-14-2006, 09:47 AM
Newsday
Business
Calverton back in play
Town of Riverhead finds itself entertaining new proposals for former U.S. Navy land
BY ELIZABETH MOORE
Newsday Staff Writer
September 14, 2006
Just when it seemed the Town of Riverhead was giving up on its plan for a regional playground on the former U.S. Navy property in Calverton, officials received a flurry of new inquiries and proposals ranging from a 70-acre amusement park to a 50-story indoor ski mountain.
A reorganized Top Gun Entertainment, which recently proposed a NASCAR-style track in Yaphank, is preparing a similar but larger proposal to build an EPCAL Entertainment Park, with everything from horses and camping to sports facilities and race cars. That is proposed for a 790-acre section where the town has signed a letter of understanding with Pulte Homes for a $91-million, 464-unit golf-course retirement community, hotel and conference center. EPCAL stands for Enterprise Park at Calverton.
And the U.S. representative for a Scotland-based investor group, Stewart International Marketing, said yesterday it may seek a 600-acres portion to build a 4-million-square-foot indoor sports facility and water park, a sort of Olympic training center for young skiers and other athletes that it expects would draw anywhere from 6,000 to 20,000 kids daily from Long Island, the United States and other countries.
Riverhead had just finished rezoning that 600-acre portion of the EPCAL property to light industrial and office uses and has been preparing a new request for proposals for it. Stewart likes its 10,000-foot runway, along with the site's proximity to two airports, a railroad and an interstate.
"What we need to find out is if this is something the community would embrace," said Del Freedline, the North American projects coordinator for Stewart, who met with town officials this summer and has been telephoning daily. He expects to pay something in the "neighborhood" of the $90 million or more that the town believes the land could claim from industrial buyers.
After a decade of failed efforts to market the site for a stadium or big theme park, Riverhead officials are taking a wait-and-see attitude toward the new, not-yet-formal proposals.
But with 90 percent of the industrial park at its core already under contract for sale much more quickly than expected, with a million square feet of building space occupied and with the prospect of competition for other portions of the site, they believe the market has finally come to Calverton.
"Eight or nine years ago, the people coming in here had grandiose ideas but no plan and no money. Now, they're credible," said Jack O'Connor, the Newmark Knight Frank real estate broker who has represented the town in marketing the property through four administrations.
Top Gun, whose former chief executive defaulted on personal loans in a separate venture, has a new, fiscally sound management structure, he noted, declining to provide details.
From 1954 to 1994 the EPCAL land, which includes two runways, was federal property occupied by Grumman Corp., which operated an aircraft assembly plant there. After Northrop Grumman announced its withdrawal, the Navy turned over title to all but a small, environmentally contaminated portion of the site to the Riverhead Community Development Agency. It is the largest current redevelopment project on Long Island.
After a planning process, the town designated about 492 acres at EPCAL's center, home to a number of former Grumman buildings, as a light-industrial park, which would be purchased by developer Jan Berman. They expected it would take 15 to 20 years for that land to be absorbed by the market, economic development director Andrea Lohneiss said.
After several frustrating years waiting for recreational buyers and lengthy but failed negotiations with developer Ken Wilpon, town officials were receptive when Pulte Homes submitted a proposal earlier this summer to buy 755 acres on the western side for a high-end Del Webb or Pulte Active Adult community for residents 55 and older. It was the only response to the town's request for proposals. In addition to the 300 acres designated for housing, it would hold a 50-acre hotel and conference center.
That proposal would donate a two-bay ambulance barn to the community, dedicate 125 acres to the Town of Riverhead for a community center to be built and paid for by Pulte, and leave 280 acres of open space.
Next month, the town will hold public hearings on whether to designate Pulte a "qualified and eligible sponsor" for the project, a prerequisite for any sale.
But Riverhead Deputy Supervisor Chris Kent said the town received a letter in June from Top Gun, notifying the town that the company was willing to pay $150,000 an acre for the property being eyed by Pulte, Kent said. That would total more than $112 million.
Top Gun's working draft proposal calls for a 100-acre equestrian area, a 100-acre motor-sports facility, instructional academy and museum, 210 acres of sports-car facilities for vintage car buffs, a 50-acre hotel and conference center, and 100 acres dedicated to indoor and outdoor sports, along with an recreational-vehicle park, family entertainment center, nightclubs and restaurant, O'Connor said.
Top Gun spokesman William Corbett Jr. said a "formal proposal will be submitted shortly."
Last month, town officials had a visit from Freedline of Stewart, who laid out details of a proposal to build an indoor megaplex totaling a staggering 4 million square feet, on the model of sports parks in Scotland, Japan, the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates. It would feature a ski mountain and water park, with ice rinks, lacrosse and soccer fields, and facilities for two dozen other sports, organized around an academy for children age 4 to 18.
So grand is the Stewart proposal that officials say they want to have it in hand - and know a lot more about Stewart International Marketing - before they take it seriously. There also are significant concerns about how to handle traffic to the Enterprise Park site because a new exit from the Long Island Expressway would have to pass over sensitive pine barrens land, Kent said.
On the southeast corner of the property, developer Ron Terenzi has agreed to pay $10.8million for a 70-acre parcel where he hopes to build a midsize amusement park about on the scale of the nearby Splish Splash water park. "I want it to be a real amusement park," said Terenzi, who has budgeted $40 million for a facility that would be three times the size of Melville's Adventureland and would have what he called "major roller coasters" and "major rides."
For town officials, whose consultant studies had persuaded them this year that light industry was what the market wanted in Calverton, being wooed by the recreation crowd is a source of bemusement - but also satisfaction.
"The price of land on the East End has increased exponentially," said community development director Lohneiss. "Ten years ago, we were looking at offers of $15,000 an acre. There's an upside to not having sold land quickly at EPCAL.
Business
Calverton back in play
Town of Riverhead finds itself entertaining new proposals for former U.S. Navy land
BY ELIZABETH MOORE
Newsday Staff Writer
September 14, 2006
Just when it seemed the Town of Riverhead was giving up on its plan for a regional playground on the former U.S. Navy property in Calverton, officials received a flurry of new inquiries and proposals ranging from a 70-acre amusement park to a 50-story indoor ski mountain.
A reorganized Top Gun Entertainment, which recently proposed a NASCAR-style track in Yaphank, is preparing a similar but larger proposal to build an EPCAL Entertainment Park, with everything from horses and camping to sports facilities and race cars. That is proposed for a 790-acre section where the town has signed a letter of understanding with Pulte Homes for a $91-million, 464-unit golf-course retirement community, hotel and conference center. EPCAL stands for Enterprise Park at Calverton.
And the U.S. representative for a Scotland-based investor group, Stewart International Marketing, said yesterday it may seek a 600-acres portion to build a 4-million-square-foot indoor sports facility and water park, a sort of Olympic training center for young skiers and other athletes that it expects would draw anywhere from 6,000 to 20,000 kids daily from Long Island, the United States and other countries.
Riverhead had just finished rezoning that 600-acre portion of the EPCAL property to light industrial and office uses and has been preparing a new request for proposals for it. Stewart likes its 10,000-foot runway, along with the site's proximity to two airports, a railroad and an interstate.
"What we need to find out is if this is something the community would embrace," said Del Freedline, the North American projects coordinator for Stewart, who met with town officials this summer and has been telephoning daily. He expects to pay something in the "neighborhood" of the $90 million or more that the town believes the land could claim from industrial buyers.
After a decade of failed efforts to market the site for a stadium or big theme park, Riverhead officials are taking a wait-and-see attitude toward the new, not-yet-formal proposals.
But with 90 percent of the industrial park at its core already under contract for sale much more quickly than expected, with a million square feet of building space occupied and with the prospect of competition for other portions of the site, they believe the market has finally come to Calverton.
"Eight or nine years ago, the people coming in here had grandiose ideas but no plan and no money. Now, they're credible," said Jack O'Connor, the Newmark Knight Frank real estate broker who has represented the town in marketing the property through four administrations.
Top Gun, whose former chief executive defaulted on personal loans in a separate venture, has a new, fiscally sound management structure, he noted, declining to provide details.
From 1954 to 1994 the EPCAL land, which includes two runways, was federal property occupied by Grumman Corp., which operated an aircraft assembly plant there. After Northrop Grumman announced its withdrawal, the Navy turned over title to all but a small, environmentally contaminated portion of the site to the Riverhead Community Development Agency. It is the largest current redevelopment project on Long Island.
After a planning process, the town designated about 492 acres at EPCAL's center, home to a number of former Grumman buildings, as a light-industrial park, which would be purchased by developer Jan Berman. They expected it would take 15 to 20 years for that land to be absorbed by the market, economic development director Andrea Lohneiss said.
After several frustrating years waiting for recreational buyers and lengthy but failed negotiations with developer Ken Wilpon, town officials were receptive when Pulte Homes submitted a proposal earlier this summer to buy 755 acres on the western side for a high-end Del Webb or Pulte Active Adult community for residents 55 and older. It was the only response to the town's request for proposals. In addition to the 300 acres designated for housing, it would hold a 50-acre hotel and conference center.
That proposal would donate a two-bay ambulance barn to the community, dedicate 125 acres to the Town of Riverhead for a community center to be built and paid for by Pulte, and leave 280 acres of open space.
Next month, the town will hold public hearings on whether to designate Pulte a "qualified and eligible sponsor" for the project, a prerequisite for any sale.
But Riverhead Deputy Supervisor Chris Kent said the town received a letter in June from Top Gun, notifying the town that the company was willing to pay $150,000 an acre for the property being eyed by Pulte, Kent said. That would total more than $112 million.
Top Gun's working draft proposal calls for a 100-acre equestrian area, a 100-acre motor-sports facility, instructional academy and museum, 210 acres of sports-car facilities for vintage car buffs, a 50-acre hotel and conference center, and 100 acres dedicated to indoor and outdoor sports, along with an recreational-vehicle park, family entertainment center, nightclubs and restaurant, O'Connor said.
Top Gun spokesman William Corbett Jr. said a "formal proposal will be submitted shortly."
Last month, town officials had a visit from Freedline of Stewart, who laid out details of a proposal to build an indoor megaplex totaling a staggering 4 million square feet, on the model of sports parks in Scotland, Japan, the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates. It would feature a ski mountain and water park, with ice rinks, lacrosse and soccer fields, and facilities for two dozen other sports, organized around an academy for children age 4 to 18.
So grand is the Stewart proposal that officials say they want to have it in hand - and know a lot more about Stewart International Marketing - before they take it seriously. There also are significant concerns about how to handle traffic to the Enterprise Park site because a new exit from the Long Island Expressway would have to pass over sensitive pine barrens land, Kent said.
On the southeast corner of the property, developer Ron Terenzi has agreed to pay $10.8million for a 70-acre parcel where he hopes to build a midsize amusement park about on the scale of the nearby Splish Splash water park. "I want it to be a real amusement park," said Terenzi, who has budgeted $40 million for a facility that would be three times the size of Melville's Adventureland and would have what he called "major roller coasters" and "major rides."
For town officials, whose consultant studies had persuaded them this year that light industry was what the market wanted in Calverton, being wooed by the recreation crowd is a source of bemusement - but also satisfaction.
"The price of land on the East End has increased exponentially," said community development director Lohneiss. "Ten years ago, we were looking at offers of $15,000 an acre. There's an upside to not having sold land quickly at EPCAL.