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HIA-LI

A drone shot of Long Island Innovation Park in Hauppauge. Photo from Town of Smithtown

Hauppauge’s new mixed-use complex will cater to young professionals working in and near the industrial park as businesses in the park evolve and change.

HIA-LI’s new vision is to add mixed-used developments to the Long Island Innovation Park area. Photo by Julianne Mosher

The Hauppauge Industrial Association of Long Island rebranded the former Hauppauge Industrial Park’s name to Long Island Innovation Park last year with plans to give it a modern facelift. It is not only the second largest industrial park in the country after Silicon Valley, but it also employs more than 55,000 people across Long Island.

Part of HIA-LI’s new vision was to add mixed-used developments to the area surrounding the park, with hopes to bring young, bright and career-driven people to work. The plan will blend housing and commercial real estate, making it an easy one-stop shop for college graduates to live, work and play all near their job.

Town of Smithtown spokeswoman Nicole Garguilo said plans for Long Island Innovation Park are heading toward a groundbreaking, but with no site planned construction as of yet. It will obviously take a few more years to be completely finalized.

But it has been a long process, beginning a little over three years ago, when James Lima Planning + Development strategists surveyed how the development could impact the area and economy. The proposal was published in 2019.

According to the report, the park already accounts for 8.2% of Long Island’s gross domestic product and houses 1,350 companies. The district encompasses about 1,400 acres of land and generates over $19 million in annual tax revenue for the town.

Garguilo said last month the overlay district was approved, which cites 13 potential properties that fit within those parameters.

“The buffer had to be 1,000 square feet between residential and commercial property,” she said. “It has to be far enough away from residential area, so we don’t interrupt the quality of life in the Hauppauge industrial zone.”

The overlay also must be on a vacant lot or property.

As the park has aged over the years, so have its occupying companies, Garguilo said.

“Commerce and economic trends have changed, leading to vacant properties, which was becoming visibly apparent when driving through the park,” she said.

So came the facelift.

“HIA in trying to reimagine what the park could be in the century we’re living in, came up with a master plan for the park to plan for the next 50 years,” Garguilo said. “Obviously industry has changed, you no longer have big warehouses, we’re seeing high tech, pharmaceutical, laboratories. … The park — if it’s going to survive and continue to produce the taxes to support the school districts — they need to evolve their park and what the parks going to look like.”

The report said the park supports the Hauppauge school district with approximately $44 million in annual tax revenue.

In building the mixed-use complex, it would “be able to attract the right high-end companies to the park,” she said, with many of the companies offering discounted housing as part of their benefits package.

“Sixty-eight percent of Long Islanders from 18 to 34 years of age planned to leave the region within the next five years,” Town of Smithtown Supervisor Ed Wehrheim (R) said at a press conference last month. “Smithtown is especially vulnerable to this exodus of young people, which would decimate the local economy, leaving behind an aging population incapable of filling local jobs.”

Garguilo said from the beginning, this project was nonpartisan, gaining support from politicians from both sides of the political spectrum.

“Everybody was instrumental in piecing it together from town, to the county and to the state with support from the Long Island Builders Association and Suffolk County IDA.”

However, some local residents claim it will cause more harm than good, saying it will cause an increase of traffic and an influx of new students to the district. “During the one opportunity the community had to voice their opinion, people were adamantly against it,” James Bouklas, president of the We Are Smithtown civic group, said. “The only ones supportive were the developers and politicians.”

Garguilo noted the study claims otherwise, mentioning that young people will stay in the same vicinity where everything they need is available.

“This vicinity is not impacting traffic,” she said. “[The Lima study] shows a slight uptick in traffic on weekends, but for the most part they want to be able do all of that and then walk home.”

She also said they are not expecting families to move into these workforce apartments, but rather use it as a stepping-stone for future homeownership.

“Statistically when a person moves to a town into an apartment or otherwise, when they’re ready to settle down they’re twice as more likely to stay in the town where they started their roots,” she said.

Hauppauge Industrial Association of Long Island launches year-long study on maximizing park's potential

Terri Alessi-Miceli, president and CEO of the Hauppauge Industrial Association of Long Island. Photo by Sara-Megan Walsh.

The Hauppauge Industrial Park’s future may include  new apartments and recreational spaces as it looks to move into the 21st century.

The Hauppauge Industrial Association of Long Island announced Jan. 19 at its annual conference that it is launching an opportunity analysis study that will attempt to identify ways the park can maximize its growth and competitiveness — with a focus on keeping millennials on Long Island.

“We have the ability to really keep these kids on Long Island,” said Terri Alessi-Miceli, president and CEO of HIA-LI. “We see the Hauppauge Industrial Park as an opportunity to do that. We are looking to make better
connections to how they get jobs, where they get jobs and where they live.”

The year-long study will be led by the Regional Plan Association, a nonprofit
research, planning and advocacy firm dedicated to the tristate area’s business growth and sustainability, which will work with Stony Brook University and the Suffolk County Industrial Development Agency. It aims to build off the results of an economic impact study of the park completed last year by SBU.

“The Hauppauge Industrial Park is the second largest industrial park in the country,
second to only Silicon Valley,” said Joe Campolo, board chairman of HIA-LI. “That’s an amazing statistic if you think of how much notoriety Silicon Valley gets and how little notoriety Hauppauge Industrial Park gets.”

Campolo said the two-year economic impact study, included research performed by three SBU graduate students, concluded that Hauppauge’s business economy lagged behind due to Silicon Valley’s partnership with Stanford University.

“A light bulb went off after that phase of the study to say, ‘How do we now collaborate with Stony Brook University directly?’” he said. “Because from a business owner’s perspective the No. 1 challenge is getting and keeping good talent here on Long
Island, and the No. 1 challenge Stony Brook has is making sure their graduates have good, solid jobs.”

The opportunity analysis will consist of surveying and gathering input from current Stony Brook students of what changes they would like to see made to the park to make it more attractive to live and work here,
according to Campolo, citing successful revitalization of Patchogue and Port Jefferson. In addition, there will be a series of meetings with current Hauppauge businesses to discuss what they need to grow.

“There’s no reason the HIA and the Hauppauge Industrial Park cannot also be a tremendous success in integrating where people work and where people live and where people recreate,” said Mitchell Pally, CEO of the Long Island Builders Institute.

One major factor the study will look at is the creation of multistory apartments in the industrial park in mixed-use buildings or along neighboring Motor Parkway. Alessi-Miceli said this is a new possibility since the Town of Smithtown created a zoning overlay district in 2015 that allows buildings along Motor Parkway up to 62 feet in height and along Northern State Parkway up to 50 feet.

Smithtown Supervisor Ed Wehrheim (R) said the overlay zoning is a “vital component to the success of the park” as the area saw a 2015 development spike after the zoning change, largely in recreational businesses and programs moving into the area.

If this new study confirms more zoning changes are needed for the park’s future growth, Wehrheim said he would welcome the HIA-LI to discuss it with the town.