After Sag Harbor voters rejected the school district’s attempt to purchase four vacant lots, a mysterious buyer has emerged and will likely develop housing — which is sure to displease those same voters.
The Trunzo family is in contract to sell the lots at 7-15 Marsden Street in Sag Harbor Village, 27East reported. The buyer wasn’t disclosed, nor was the potential final purchase price for a quadrant of lots listed for a collective $9 million.
The four contiguous lots on the north side of the street span more than three acres. They have been vacant for 50 years, which is also how long the Trunzos have owned them.
The Trunzos almost unloaded the lots a year ago to the Sag Harbor School District, whose office is across the street. The district was eyeing the lots for athletic fields or another school use.
But in May, a school budget proposition to purchase the lots — as well as an additional one the Trunzos aren’t yet selling — for $9.4 million was narrowly defeated by voters. The school district was prepared to pay with a $6 million bond and $3.4 million in capital reserves.
Instead, the contracted buyer is likely to build houses on the lots, Pat Trunzo III told 27East.
Saunder & Associates’ Lori MacGarva has the listing.
Opponents of the school district’s proposed purchase had called for the Southampton Town Community Preservation Fund to purchase the land instead and preserve it from development. Trunzo even had MacGarva reach out to the town to gauge its interest in buying the land. The response was crickets.
Trunzo also owns 12 Marsden Street, for which he recently received approval from the village’s Board of Architectural Review and Historic Preservation to build a home. Trunzo plans to list the house after it’s built.