Developer Engel Burman to replace Deer Park school with senior housing complex

The school district in the hamlet of Deer Park voted four years ago to sell the onetime home of the defunct George Washington School to a developer, and now a deal finally looks like it may take place within the next few months, according to Newsday. The school closed more than 28 years ago. It subsequently hosted a day care center and a community center, both of which moved out by June 2015 as Deer Park prepared to sell the facility to Garden City-based developer Engel Burman. The latter plans to erect Seasons at Deer Park, a roughly $30 million housing development that will have 14 residential buildings and 200 apartments for people 55 and older. The project will also include a recreational building with a swimming pool and another building to hold school district offices. Engel Burman will build a single-family house on the same plot. The developer has secured all of the necessary approvals from the Town of Babylon, of which Deer Park is a part, to move ahead with its plans, but is still awaiting a final go-ahead from the Suffolk County Department of Health Services to remove the agency’s wastewater on the site, Engel Burman’s attorney Christopher Kent of Long Island’s Farrell Fritz told Newsday. After that final sign-off is obtained, construction should take about 18 months, the outlet reported. [Newsday]