By: Gary Haber
The developers of a Tempo by Hilton hotel planned for a long-vacant former bowling alley site in Patchogue are proposing a small building for the property at 138 West Avenue.
At a public hearing before the Village of Patchogue Board of Trustees on Oct. 28, developer West Avenue Partners said it now wants to build a five-story building with four floors of hotel rooms and apartments and a fifth-floor restaurant and spa. It would have 96 hotel rooms and 13 apartments.
The original plans called for a six-story building with 118 rooms and 16 apartments.
“A lot of what we were hearing was that the building was too big for the residential area,” Chris Wraback, director of investments for AVGI, West Avenue Partners’ parent company, said following the hearing.
“We are trying to address those concerns and build a project that is going to be resilient for Patchogue in the long term,” Wraback said.
The matter is before the village board because the project needs a change of zone from the board.
At a public hearing before the village board in May, numerous residents raised concerns about the proposed hotel, including its potential impact on traffic and parking in the surrounding residential neighborhood.
The current plans call for 119 onsite parking spaces. That exceeds the 101 spaces the village code requires, Larry Davis, the developers’ attorney, told the board.
If additional spaces are needed, the town-owned parking lot at the Long Island Rail Road station across the street could be used for parking for hotel employees, mayor Paul Pontieri said.
“There are ways we can make it work without impinging on the surrounding neighborhood,” Pontieri said.
In addition to scaling back the size of the building, the developers also changed its look to incorporate what Wraback called “more of a nautical, coastal environment,” including adding a lighthouse design feature on the corner of the site facing Division Street.
“We wanted something with more of a Patchogue feel,” he said.
The village board didn’t vote at the conclusion of the public hearing on whether to approve the zoning change. Instead, it scheduled the matter for Nov. 12.
If the board approves the zoning change, it still requires approval by the Village of Patchogue Planning Board and review by the Suffolk County Planning Commission.
If approved, the building would take about two years to build, Davis told the village board.
In other news, the Village Board appointed Jessica Nelson as a full member of the village Planning Board to fill a vacancy through March 31, 2025. She is a senior marketing associate at TRITEC Real Estate, developer of Station Yards in Ronkonkoma and New Village at Patchogue.