Brookhaven seeks master developer to revitalize Mastic Beach’s blighted downtown

With the correct strategy and adequate income, Mastic Beach’s blighted downtown organization district could be reinvented as a Very long Island version of a seaside Cape Cod village, Brookhaven Town officers say.

City officials are preparing to choose the upcoming step in the South Shore hamlet’s transformation by launching a research for a grasp developer to shepherd the project. The developer will be expected to prepare a comprehensive approach with proposals for housing, retail shops and places to eat that will rejuvenate the community and give it “a perception of place,” officials mentioned in a information release.

“We’re on the lookout to create a vivid, new downtown space for Mastic Seashore,” mentioned Brookhaven Councilman Dan Panico, who grew up in Mastic Seashore and represents it on the town board. “We’ve cracked down on housing troubles, we have taken down houses, we have preserved residence, we’ve enhanced our park.

“It’s the suitable time to go out to the progress neighborhood to give Mastic Beach front the downtown that it justifies.”

Brookhaven previous month released a Request for Qualifications in search of prospective grasp developers. Bids are thanks by Sept. 13.

The fifty percent-mile-very long downtown contains tiny organizations and decaying, deserted commercial properties. Redevelopment strategies have been in the performs for yrs and picked up steam right after the Village of Mastic Beach front disbanded in 2017 amid fiscal and political troubles.

Community Street, downtown Mastic Beach’s principal thoroughfare, was renamed Most important Avenue to create a additional organization-pleasant picture, and a new $9.5 million Mastic Seaside Ambulance Co. headquarters was opened in 2018.

Operate has started on a $4.5 million challenge to convert the former village hall into a 7,000-sq.-foot annex of the Mastic-Moriches-Shirley Community Library. And options for Suffolk County’s new Forge River Sewer District will enable growth of existing organizations and generation of new ones, officials claimed.

Panico claimed he envisions a truncated version of Patchogue’s productive downtown redevelopment. Mastic Seaside has a populace of about 13,000.

“This is not Patchogue. This is a waterfront community that ought to have a very good combine of makes use of, [such as] new housing, dining places, retailers, potentially even healthcare,” he explained. “It is much more together the traces of New England.”

Former Mastic Seaside mayor Maura Spery claimed the downtown has remarkable potential and a large have to have for new enterprises and an up to date glance. But she cautioned that city officials will have to operate carefully with current enterprise house owners to guarantee they are not squeezed out by new design.

“These are the people today who have been there for 20 [or] 30 many years and have fought by all our challenges, and I never want to see them as losers,” Spery said. “I sense like it’s heading to be a success if they do that.”

Richard Mazanek, owner of Dick’s Bait & Tackle on Key Road, explained the downtown could reward from new ideas and updated infrastructure, introducing that he’s observed “For Sale” signals in some older properties.

But community people will have to be patient, he claimed.

“It is not going to transpire right away. It’s going to take place slowly,” Mazanek said. “There is been more enhancement in the last year or two than there has been for awhile. … It could be a good, quaint tiny little town.”