Long Island’s Adventureland is scheduled to open March 26 for its first regular Spring season in nearly three years as it celebrates its 60th anniversary and a hoped-for return to post-pandemic “normality.”

All that will be missing from the family-run, roadside amusement park is its newest headline thrill-ride attraction, a vertical roller coaster called FireBall. But it’s on the way.

Steve Gentile, co-owner and president of Adventureland, said management at the amusement park located at 2245 Broadhollow Rd. in East Farmingdale is “very excited” to welcome parkgoers for their first normal opening weekend since March 2019. The park was shuttered throughout 2020 and operated for a shorter season last year.

Gentile said he’s hopeful 2022 attendance will be much stronger than last year’s when the business was not allowed to open until mid-April because of state guidance for amusement businesses.

“Coming off a season where our group business was down 40% to 50%, we’re anticipating having a very strong season because of the normality setting in,” said Gentile, whose park employs over 600, mostly teenagers, during the height of their summer season.

One reason behind Gentile’s optimism is the loosening of COVID-19 mandates, especially those concerning school children. A state mandate requiring students to wear masks in class ended March 2.

“Once they lifted the mandates from the schools, we’ve noticed that our phones are ringing,” Gentile said. “People are looking to get back to normal and they want to spend that time having fun with their children and their families.”

There will be no mask or vaccination requirements to enter the park, he said, though a general-admission ticket policy put in place earlier in the pandemic to control visitor capacity will remain in place.

Until last spring, Adventureland had been free to enter and required visitors to buy tickets for individual attractions.

This year general admission, which includes unlimited rides until the park closes, is $41.99 for those aged 2 to 24 and $31.99 for those 25 and older, according to the park’s website.

To help the park attract more visitors and rebound from the pandemic, the state awarded Adventureland $210,000 in December to support a “tourism marketing plan to expand its reach into the tristate area,” state officials said at the time.

Gentile said the park has almost finished work on the marketing plan.

The park’s new FireBall ride will be ready later in the Spring, Gentile said.

The vertical coaster has curves designed to make riders feel like they are falling off a cliff. The red-and-yellow structure will stand about 60 feet tall and will feature three gondola cars that each seat two pairs of riders, back to back.

Gentile said the ride, which should arrive by truck late next week, will take around two weeks to assemble.

The coaster, manufactured by Altendorf, Switzerland-based Ride Engineers Switzerland, represents a $2 million investment, and is the first of its design in North America, Gentile said. The parts are coming from Switzerland, Germany and Spain.

It is the third roller coaster at the park, joining the Rattlesnake and Turbulence, which debuted in 2015. Gentile said he anticipates increased ticket sales from FireBall.

“Every time you put in a new attraction like this, amusement parks always see a bump in foot traffic,” he said.

Article: https://www.newsday.com/business/roller-coaster-rides-amusement-fireball-1.50539780

A developer who wants to build two warehouses on formerly toxic land in Hicksville is seeking tax breaks from Nassau County, officials said.

Brookfield Properties, one of the world’s largest commercial real estate companies, has requested $3.3 million in a sales-tax exemption and mortgage-recording tax savings from the county’s Industrial Development Agency. The developer also wants 20 years of property tax savings.

The IDA board voted unanimously this month to negotiate a tax-aid package with Brookfield.

Daniel P. Deegan, the developer’s real estate attorney, said the warehouses, totaling 303,680 square feet, will be constructed out of state if Nassau isn’t able to reduce the tax burden. Without IDA assistance, the property tax bills will equal $7.25 per square foot of warehouse space compared with $2 to $3 in New Jersey, he said.

Deegan said Brookfield’s annual property-tax payments, even with IDA tax breaks, will be higher than the $402,000 currently being collected by local governments from the developer.

Brookfield paid $46 million last summer for the 15-acre site of the former Hooker Chemical & Plastics Corp. That’s more than 10 times the amount paid in 2017 by the previous owner, Simone Development Companies, a Bronx-based real estate investment firm.

The vacant land at 125 New South Rd. was heavily polluted starting in 1946 by a succession of manufacturers of plastics, rubber and polyester, including Hooker and Ruco Polymer Corp. It was declared a Superfund site in 1984 and has since been cleaned up.

Brookfield, in its application for IDA aid, estimated the total price tag for the warehouse project is $114 million.

Company representatives said tenants will be secured once the warehouses are completed. The lack of signed leases was questioned by some IDA board members.

Timothy Williams, the agency’s secretary, said he was concerned that Nassau taxpayers would be supporting a project that may not have tenants for a number of years.

“If it’s going to take three years to find a suitable tenant, what are the residents of Nassau County getting in return?” Williams said. “I remain concerned about [IDA support for] projects with only a hope and a prayer” of securing tenants.

Deegan, Brookfield’s attorney, responded by touting the company’s reputation, noting that it oversees more than 800 properties around the globe, totaling 375 million square feet.

“There are a lot of smaller developers around that I can see you might be concerned about, but Brookfield is the real deal,” he said.

IDA chairman Richard Kessel agreed, citing tax breaks for other developers for projects in Hicksville and Mineola. Both warehouses didn’t have tenants until after the construction was finished.

“Those buildings are now full of tenants,” he said. “If there was a failure to attract tenants then we can claw back the [tax] benefits.”

Article: https://www.newsday.com/business/ida-tax-breaks-warehouses-hicksville-brookfield-properties-1.50538623

As hotels nationwide seek a path back to prosperity, one Hamptons resort has emerged as a beacon.

Gurney’s, a recently renovated luxury hotel in Montauk, was situated almost perfectly to thrive in the pandemic, according to a new report from Morningstar DBRS.

It’s a “drive-to” resort, within reach of Covid-cautious travelers who were afraid to fly but still wanted a taste of the beach. The 149-key Gurney’s is one of only two proper, full-service resorts in the Hamptons built right up against the Atlantic Ocean.

With 60 percent of Montauk preserved as open space, and very little coastal land zoned for commercial use, the odds of a competitor emerging with better ocean access are slim.

East Hampton is also extremely picky about the new hotel projects it allows. Town zoning regulations ban chain hotels, and in 2015, it outlawed the conversion of hotels into nightclubs.

Arbitrary minimums and maximums abound: New developments need at least 25 rooms, but their restaurants can’t take up more than 2,000 square feet or 20 percent of their structures. The regulations are so tight that Gurney’s Beach Club is the only food and beverage outlet actually on a Hamptons beach.

The hotel also got ahead of Covid’s inflation and supply chain nightmares with $54 million in renovations, courtesy of New York landlord BLDG Management and Metrovest Equities, who bought the once-dingy motel as a joint venture in 2013. The investors spruced up guest rooms, common areas, amenities and restaurants, and are finishing up a $16.4 million spa, which will pump seawater directly from the ocean into its full-size swimming pool.

The upgrades have allowed Gurney’s to increase the money it makes on an occupied room by nearly 50 percent in just three years.

Pound-for-pound, comparable hotels have actually gotten a bit more expensive, a sign of the booming East End hotel scene in general. But Gurney’s maintained its sizable lead in occupancy rates even as travel restrictions and pandemic worries grew. While far fewer people stayed in hotels in 2020 than usual, Gurney’s still finished the year 59 percent full on average, compared to 42 percent for similar Hamptons hotels.

Gurney’s revPAR — room revenue divided by the number of rooms available — reached $675.81 on Sept. 30 last year, up 52 percent from $443.88 before the pandemic. For reference, revPAR in New York City last month was still about $50 below the usual level at this time of year.

Morningstar cautions that prices will probably stabilize at some level below current heights. High expenses will persist, the ratings agency predicts, as the labor market remains tight and employees struggle to find affordable housing near the resort.

The property is also highly leveraged compared to its competition, with a $217.5 million mortgage against a $244 million market value, according to LW Hospitality Advisors, a hotel consultancy and appraiser. The resort’s value will jump to $258 million once the spa renovations are complete.

Even if prices fall, occupancy and events will likely rise. Gurney’s says it has at least 20 weddings on the books this year already. Don’t bother calling if you plan to spend less than $100,000.

BLDG Management is run by Lloyd Goldman, whose uncle Sol Goldman built one of New York’s largest privately held real estate empires. Metrovest Equities is owned by George Filopoulos, who founded the firm in 1996, according to a 2018 interview in Leaders Magazine.

After buying the Gurney’s brand in 2013, the team bought and renovated the former Montauk Yacht Club, now a 107-key branded hotel, and a pair of resorts in Newport, Rhode Island, and Paradise Valley, Arizona. Neither firm responded to requests for comment.

The spa renovation can’t come too soon for Gurney’s guests, some of whom might be in need of a massage after booking a room this summer. The cheapest one is already north of $1,000 per night.

Article: https://therealdeal.com/2022/03/15/the-hamptons-hotel-that-conquered-covid/

Finding tenants for 263 West 34th Street has been difficult, to say the least.

Convenience store chain 7-11 wanted the ground floor retail space, but discussions fell through after the firm’s representative was mugged in front of the building.

Pharmaceutical giant Merck backed out of a six-floor lease after reading about stabbings near the front door.

Workers for one of the two companies that did rent space, Kolb Radiology, were attacked outside the property as they delivered helium for its MRI machine.

Now, the building owners face an assault of their own, with control of their newly completed building hanging in the balance.

Churchill Real Estate says it has spent about $90 million on the office and retail building near Penn Station since 2016, hoping to capitalize on a upgrades to the transit hub. However, just as their project neared completion, the pandemic devastated New York and damaged office and retail leasing.

Churchill has failed to pull in tenants, and now its senior lender, Marathon Asset Management, is suing to foreclose on the building.

In 2019, Marathon lent Churchill $52 million across three loans to refinance debt on the project and finish construction. Marathon soon transferred the loans through a series of shell companies, and the debt ended up with a Cayman Islands corporation called Marathon CRE 2018-FL1 Issuer.

Churchill tried to find tenants for its building, tapping Avison Young in August 2020 to market the available space. An Avison Young broker wrote that the firm leased 40 percent of its assigned square footage, but it wasn’t enough for Churchill to make its monthly payments. When it missed one last April, Marathon declared the loan in default and accelerated the loan at default interest that June.

In response, Churchill focused on the Caribbean connection.

Robert Tolchin, Churchill’s attorney, zeroed in on the 2018-FL1 Issuer shell company’s Cayman Islands address, arguing that it should not be able to sue for foreclosure because it is not registered to do business in New York.

Marathon shot back that the shell company has only held the loans on this one project, and therefore doesn’t reach the state’s threshold of conducting “systematic or regular” business that requires registration.

Ronal Bhagat, who heads commercial real estate asset management for Marathon, argued in court filings that the shell company is a special purpose entity formed exclusively to hold the mortgage loans.

“Other than holding the mortgage loans at issue here, [Marathon CRE 2018-FL1 Issuer] has never done another loan transaction in New York, and [it] does not conduct any other business in New York,” Bhagat wrote.

One wrinkle: Public records show Marathon has used the shell company to hold mortgages on properties in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx. In July 2018, the shell company took on leases and rents at 358 East 149th Street in the South Bronx. The following April, it transferred the loans on a handful of Borough Park buildings to another lender.

Marathon eventually transferred the loans on Churchill’s building from the Cayman LLC to one in Delaware, but not until November 2021, two months after filing its initial complaint. James Kim, the firm’s attorney, wrote in a filing that if there were a violation, the courts usually allow such infractions to be cured. Kim didn’t respond to a request for comment.

A state judge appointed a receiver to take over the property in January, forcing Churchill to turn over the books, keys and bank accounts attached to the property. But Marathon’s motions for foreclosure on the loans haven’t been settled, and have since been moved to a federal court.

In legal filings, Kim calls the nationality defense a “feeble attempt to thwart the foreclosure process,” and maintains that Churchill owes Marathon almost $56 million, including $4.6 million in interest alone.

Crime has increased across much of the country during the pandemic, as have office and retail vacancies.

“If you didn’t have Covid,” Tolchin said, “this would be a nice, fully occupied building, and everything would be great.”

Article: https://therealdeal.com/2022/03/14/facing-foreclosure-at-star-crossed-building-churchill-cites-caymans-connection/

Another former Kmart space on Long Island will be getting a new lease on life.

The Suffolk County Department of Social Services will be relocating its Riverhead office to 605 Old Country Road, which was occupied by a Kmart until 2018.

The county department will move into 38,555 square feet, or 35%, of Kmart’s former 108,720-square-foot space in spring 2023, according to the property’s owner, The Feil Organization, a commercial real estate firm in Manhattan.

The vacant Kmart building is in a retail development called East End Commons, whose only other tenant is a BJ’s Wholesale Club.

Feil plans to redevelop the former Kmart building for office use for the county’s social services, and is open to office, retail or medical tenants for the remaining space in the building, Feil said.

“The continued influx of people relocating to Long Island has been a positive trend for Riverhead and, as a landlord, we’ll continue focusing on meeting the needs of the community. There is a lot of excitement regarding this renovation, and additional subdivisions and conversions are in consideration for the remaining 70,165 [square feet],” Nick Dries, director of leasing at Feil, said in a statement.

BJ’s performs very well, and East End Commons is in a prime location, said Randall Briskin, vice president of leasing at Feil.

“The fact that it sits at the intersection of Route 25 and Northville Turnpike has always enabled this particular property to feed from southern Long Island and eastern Long Island. It’s just a great crossroads,” he said.

The county social services agency’s current Riverhead office is 1.2 miles away, occupying 25,365 square feet at 893 East Main St., where it has been since 1988, according to the agency.

The office will relocate because the landlord did not renew the lease, which expired Nov. 13, the agency said.

The Suffolk County Legislature authorized County Executive Steve Bellone to execute a 20-year lease, with one 10-year option to renew, for the East End Commons space, and Bellone signed a resolution Dec. 28.

The county will pay annual base rent of $761,461 for the first five years of occupancy, according to the resolution. That amount will increase 10% every five years, ending with $1,013,505 annually for the last five years.

The department of social services operates four service centers – in Riverhead, Coram, Hauppauge and Deer Park. The centers provide support for clients receiving benefits, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly called the Food Stamp Program), Home Energy Assistance Program, emergency housing assistance, Medicaid and other services.

The Riverhead office has about 140 employees and served more than 7,000 clients in 2020 and more than 12,000 clients in 2021, the agency said.

Store exits leave big holes

The Kmart in Riverhead opened in 1995. It was among 46 unprofitable stores that their former parent company, Sears Holdings Corp., closed in November 2018.

Kmart and its sister retail chain Sears have dwindled from having stores numbering in the thousands to just a few locations over the years.

A dozen Kmart and Sears stores on Long Island have closed since April 2018, leaving large vacancies that can be challenging for landlords to fill.

On Tuesday, Newsday reported that a 185,118-square-foot West Babylon building formerly occupied by a Kmart and a Sears Appliance Outlet would be redeveloped for possible retail, medical and restaurant tenants.

Article: https://www.newsday.com/business/kmart-sears-riverhead-suffolk-county-department-of-social-services-relocate-1.50533095

At 12:30 on a recent Wednesday, 10 people stood in line to pay for their lunches of panini sandwiches, pizza and tossed salads at Suburban Eats in Melville. Two cashiers rang up the orders; the telephone was silent.

Two years ago, before the coronavirus forced office employees to work from home, 30 to 40 people would be waiting to pay at the deli’s four cash registers. Delivery orders would be coming in constantly via fax and phone calls.

“A lot of businesses aren’t back in the office at all, and the ones that are have some departments like human resources and finance that are working from home permanently,” said Suburban Eats owner Timothy Caras. “Customers that I used to see five times a week now come in once or twice a week… My business is struggling,” he said.

The 20-year-old deli is among the restaurants and coffee shops in the Route 110 corridor that cater to office personnel and have been decimated by workers’ prolonged absence because of the pandemic.

Some eateries have laid off half their staff and cut other overhead expenses in an effort to survive. Others have closed, unable to hang on until the day when — or if — office workers return in large numbers.

At Suburban Eats, sales are down 40%, Caras said. The number of lunch deliveries has fallen from 30 to 40 per day to 20. Catering orders have gone from 12 to 15 per day to three to five – and they’re smaller, for groups of six to 12 people instead of 40 to 100 people before the virus struck.

Caras has reduced his workforce to 12 from the pre-pandemic level of 25 to 30. But he’s fallen behind on rent payments and has reluctantly put the deli up for sale.

The 110 corridor, stretching for 15 miles in Huntington and Babylon towns, is where more than 150,000 people used to work, according to studies by Babylon and the think-tank Regional Plan Association in Manhattan.

The biggest offices are between the Northern State Parkway and the Southern State Parkway. The corridor is the largest concentration of office space in Suffolk County, with nearly 9 million square feet, according to commercial real estate brokers.

The 110 office parks, like other centers of work that were deemed “nonessential” in the pandemic’s worst days, shut down on Sunday, March 22, 2020 at 8 p.m. by order of then-Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. He lifted what he called “New York State on PAUSE” after 12 weeks, but most offices stayed deserted for another year or more as new COVID-19 variants forced employers to repeatedly change their return-to-office timetables.

Read the full article: https://www.newsday.com/business/restaurants-route-110-melville-covid-1.50532222

The first Kmart to come to Long Island soon won’t look anything like its historic past after a $20 million redevelopment project.

Elias Properties Management is spearheading the redevelopment of 1000 Montauk Highway in West Babylon, Newsday reported. Forthcoming changes to the building include a reduction in size and a redivision of space to increase capacity to five tenants, which could include retail stores, offices and restaurants.

The Town of Babylon has approved plans for the redevelopment of the 185,000-square-foot building. Once completed, the structure will be slightly fewer than 150,000 square feet, a drop of about 19 percent in size.

Major construction work is expected to begin in 2023, according to Newsday, and take eight months. New tenants welcomed during the property’s redevelopment will join a Dollar Tree location that was allowed to remain after subleasing from Sears Holding Corp. in 2016. Elias plans to relocate the retailer elsewhere in the building.

The building was formerly occupied by discount department store TSS-Seedman’s, which closed in 1989. Kmart opened in the space a year later, the first Long Island location for the company, according to Newsday. A Sears Appliance Outlet location also opened in the building.

But Sears Holding Corp. fell on hard times and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2018, 13 years after Sears and Kmart merged. Transformco purchased the assets a year later and Kmart and Sears stores have been closing at a high clip ever since; the West Babylon Kmart closed in September 2018.

Long Island’s last Sears closed in October at the Sunrise Mall in Massapequa. Owner Urban Edge Properties was reported last month to have stopped renewing leases at the mall, and is expected to push for a redevelopment of the property after the tenants are gone.

Long Island’s last Kmart, meanwhile, is still hanging on in Bridgehampton.

Article: https://therealdeal.com/2022/03/09/redevelopment-hitting-former-west-babylon-kmart/

Amazon has made another move in Long Island’s hot industrial market.

The e-commerce giant inked a 10-year lease for a 246,000-square-foot warehouse at 90 Ruland Road in Melville, Long Island Business News reported. The building is one of two being developed by Hartz Mountain Industries at the former Newsday site in the Suffolk County town.

Read the full article on The Real Deal: https://therealdeal.com/2022/03/01/amazon-inks-industrial-lease-in-long-island-last-mile-push/

“Produce wholesaler expanding in Syosset”

https://libn.com/2022/02/18/produce-wholesaler-expanding-in-syosset/

“Manufacturer getting IDA assist for Roosevelt expansion”

https://libn.com/2022/02/16/manufacturer-getting-ida-assist-for-roosevelt-expansion/