Jerry Wolkoff wants a new industrial building in Edgewood, former newspaper mogul’s Gold Coast mansion seeks $13M & more Long Island real estate news

Wolkoff eyes a 231K sf industrial building in Edgewood
Gerald “Jerry” Wolkoff may not be worried about succession planning at his Edgewood-based G&M Realty, but the veteran Long Island developer is hoping to start construction in July on a 231,000-square-foot industrial building at his Heartland Business Center in Suffolk County, Long Island Business News reported. Wolkoff has applied for economic incentives from the Town of Islip Industrial Development Agency to help build the facility on a 20-acre parcel at 80 Wilshire Boulevard. If completed, the project would take up a 20-acre parcel within the 400-acre industrial park that Wolkoff broke ground on in 1985. Wolkoff has yet to secure any tenants for the proposed building, but he’s not worried about that either. “I find tenants because I give them a deal and a terrific product,” he told LIBN. Wolkoff is moving forward on developing the site at a time when Long Island’s vacancy rate for industrial space is 5.2 percent, while the average asking rent climbed to $11.05 per square foot, its highest mark in a decade, according to data from Cushman & Wakefield. The Islip IDA will hold a public hearing on the project — slated for completion in the summer of 2020 — on June 17. Meanwhile, Wolkoff is still pursuing other high-profile projects, such as Heartland Town Square, where he is sparring with Suffolk officials over a sewer connection agreement, and the controversial 5Pointz development in Long Island City. Wolkoff expects to finish two 5Pointz residential towers by next spring. [LIBN]

Late newspaper publisher’s Old Brookville mansion lists at $13M
A French Normandy-style mansion in the Village of Old Brookville has hit the market for $12.5 million, according to the Long Island Press. The home at 289 Piping Rock Road, known as Woodside, was designed by Benjamin Wistar Morris and built in 1928 for Fremont Carson Peck, the former publisher of the Brooklyn Daily Times and the Brooklyn Times-Union. The Gold Coast estate later went through significant renovations. Woodside has eight bedrooms, eight bathrooms, four half bathrooms, an eat-in kitchen, a separate prep kitchen, a game room, a wine cellar, four fireplaces and a gym. Sitting on a 12-acre lot, the home also has a separate three-bedroom cottage, a detached three-car garage, a saltwater pool, a pool house and a tennis court. Christina Porter and Robert Hulse of Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty have the listing. Woodside isn’t the only high-end home on the market in Old Brookville, which is within the Town of Oyster Bay. CBS New York noted in late May a 12,500-square-foot new build at 2 Brook Lane listed with Nest Seekers International’s Zach Elliott at $7.9 million. [Long Island Press]

Farmingville moves forward with $100M mixed-use project
The long-delayed Arboretum project, a $100 million, 292-unit community planned in the Suffolk County hamlet of Farmingville, is back on track after the Brookhaven Town Planning Board voted 6-to-0 earlier this month to approve a site plan for the mixed-use development, Newsday reported. The Arboretum hit a snag last year after its developer, the Patchogue-based Kelly Development Group, sought to first finish another 139-unit complex in Selden. Michael Kelly, head of the development firm, also recently told Newsday that he needed to line up new financial backers for the Arboretum following the sudden death at 60 of Michael McHugh, the former president and CEO of Melville-based Continental Home Loans. Kelly said that instead of initial plans to sell all or most of the Arboretum’s units, its developers will now look to rent them in response to growing demand for affordable housing from younger and older residents in the area. The proposed development will rise on a 65-acre tract and include single-family homes and apartments, a public park and pond, a pool and barbecue area and a 5,500-square-foot community center. Newsday noted the Arboretum’s plans also include 12,000 or more square feet for one or more restaurants, as well as 12,000 square feet of office space. [Newsday] — Brian Baxter

Experts predict LI’s hotel market to suffer in coming years
The Long Island hotel market is expected to have a significant downturn over the next four years, becoming one of the worst in the country, according to a new study released by Ten-X Commercial, a real estate sales platform. The company put the area in the top three of its list of “sell markets,” Long Island Business News reported. Local hotels had a 75 percent occupancy rate in the first quarter of 2019, up 73 percent from a year ago, and revenue per available room jumped 3 percent, to $114.78. But the average daily room rate of $150.69 during the first three months of 2019 was a 1.3 percent drop from the first quarter of 2018. LIBN noted that Ten-X predicts that downward trend to continue for the next few years. “Room rates are at a peak and they don’t have much more to run,” said Ten-X senior quantitative strategist Matthew Schreck. By the end of last year, Long Island had 14,493 hotel rooms. That number is expected to grow to 14,663 by the end of this year. Ten-X predicts that occupancy will also drop to 70.6 percent this year, while average room rates on Long Island will fall to $143.83 and revenue per available room will tumble to $102.10 in 2020. Joining Long Island in Ten-X’s ranking of top “sell” markets for hospitality investors — the firm analyzed the 52 largest metropolitan markets in the country — were Kansas City, Missouri, and Minneapolis. [TRD]

17 Nassau and Suffolk towns vie for $10M redevelopment grant
Officials from 17 towns across Long Island have applied to get a $10 million grant from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI) to finance their redevelopment plans, Newsday reported. Nine of the applicants are from Suffolk County, with the rest in Nassau County, the fewest number ever from Long Island since the program came into being in 2016. Last year, Long Island had 23 applicants, up from 21 in 2017 and 20 in 2016, according to Newsday. The DRI gives a $10 million grant to one project in each of New York’s 10 regions. Statewide, officials in 94 areas applied, 11 fewer than the year before, Newsday reported. Meanwhile, a state panel of local leaders called the Long Island Regional Economic Development Council (LIREDC) will recommend one of the applicants from Nassau or Suffolk to Albany by July 12. The LIREDC will judge applicants on eight factors, including the compactness of their downtown area, potential job growth, proximity to housing and redevelopment strategy. Central Islip won last year, Hicksville the year before that and Westbury in 2016. Islip officials plan to use the state funds to refurbish an approximately two-mile stretch of Carleton Avenue. [Newsday]

Developer buys pair of Mineola industrial buildings for $16M
Bethpage-based developer Steel Equities bought two industrial buildings in Mineola for $16 million, the latest in a spate of local industrial property sales, Long Island Business News reported. The two buildings, which total 163,000 square feet stretched over five acres, were once home to A.K. Allen Co. and its aircraft part manufacturing subsidiaries Allenair Corporation and Allen Avionics. Steel Equities, which this week donated a parking lot to the Town of Oyster Bay, plans to redevelop the properties at 222-234 East Second Street and 235-255 East Second Street into a multi-tenant industrial complex. Allenair had been headquartered in Mineola since 1958, but shuttered its facility in 2017 after it was acquired by Ohio-based Alkon Corporation. Willy Becker and Tony Gerrato of Racanelli Becker & Associates in Melville represented Steel Equities in the sale, while Jason Miller and Jeff Schwartzberg of Premier Commercial Real Estate in Plainview advised the seller. Elsewhere in Mineola, the hot market for industrial properties saw electronics company SBG Distribution, advised by Joicey Varughese of Schacker Realty in Melville, pay $3.59 million earlier this month to buy 257 East Second Street, according to LIBN, which noted that David Hunt of Hunt Corporate Services in Plainview advised the seller, Great Neck Saw Manufacturers. In Bohemia, Tri-Par Manufacturing recently paid $2.85 million to acquire 2050 Arctic Avenue from IIJ Associates. LIBN noted that Tommy Rosati, Jason Maietta and Brandon Lichtenstein of Colliers International Long Island represented both parties on that industrial sale. In Hicksville, Modena Realty Corporation paid $2.8 million this month to buy a manufacturing plant at 761 South Broadway from Giachinno Realty Corporation in a deal that LIBN reported was brokered by Premier’s Miller and Schwartzberg. [LIBN]

LI retail landlords look to gyms, fitness studios to fill space
The Real Deal reported earlier this year on landlords searching for solutions to the so-called retail apocalypse in suburbia by signing up new types of tenants, including high-end gyms, by subdividing former big box spaces. On Long Island, some property owners are trying to offset the downturn hitting brick-and-mortar stores by turning to such gyms and specialty fitness studios, according to Newsday. With 2019 expected to be a record-breaking year for store closings across the country, the outlet cited data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showing that the number of fitness and recreational sports centers across Nassau and Suffolk counties rose 10.3 percent between 2013 and 2018. Long Island now has 483 locations that fit the fitness and gym criteria, many of them outposts opened by growing chains like 24 Hour Fitness, Crunch Fitness and L.A. Fitness, Newsday reported. Just last month, Peloton opened a 2,400-square-foot store at the Roosevelt Field mall in Garden City. Despite the new retail landscape, Newsday also looked at some of the vanquished retailers that have bid adieu to Long Island (and the rest of the country) in recent decades, such as Caldor, Crazy Eddie, King Kullen, Nobody Beats the Wiz, Pergament and Waldbaum’s. [Newsday] — Brian Baxter