By Victoria Espinoza

Smithtown school district’s headquarters on New York Avenue, which currently houses administrative offices, could soon become an apartment building.

The Smithtown school board voted at the Oct. 25 meeting to approve entering a contract with Southern Land Company, for the sale of the property and the surrounding land.

Smithtown Superintendent Jim Grossane said in a letter to residents he believes this is a positive decision for the community.

“The board of education and administration believe that the proposed use of the property is one that would benefit our school community,” he said. “If finalized, the sale will potentially expand our tax base, lowering the burden on our residents, and provide additional resources to enhance our educational programs.”

According to Grossane, Southern Land Company is planning on building one- and two-bedroom apartments that will be “in keeping with the architectural style of Smithtown.”

“Though still in the early stages of the contract, if finalized, the district would receive the greater of $71,000 per approved unit or $14,768,000 for the sale of the building,” Grossane said. The superintendent added that the contract has a 75-day due-diligence period, where the company has the right to back out of the purchase.

Jena Armistead, vice president of marketing for Southern Land Company, said the organization is very excited to start working with the community.

“We are proud to be selected by Smithtown school board to be the developer for a new residential community in the neighborhood,” she said in an email. “Having been selected in the competitive process, we will now turn to working with the community to develop an overall plan. In the coming weeks we look forward to engaging neighbors and town leaders in an open dialogue that will make an important contribution to the vision, design program and schedule for this project.”

Armistead said the plan is tentatively for the building to have about 250 apartments, although the company does not want to finalize a plan until after they have had discussions with the Smithtown community.

“We want to create something that will benefit the community,” she said in a phone interview.

The New York Avenue property is the site of the Arthur House, a historic home once owned by John Arthur, a prominent member of Smithtown in the mid-1700s.

But Smithtown Supervisor Pat Vecchio said the plan requires zoning changes and the school board should not get ahead of themselves.

“If finalized, the sale will potentially expand our tax base, lowering the burden on our residents, and provide additional resources to enhance our educational programs.”

— James Grossane

“The Southern Land Company must apply for zone change to the town board,” he said in an email. “The school board is being presumptuous in assuming the town board will change the zone. There must be a public hearing and the people will be heard for or against such a change.”

Agnes Vion, an administrative assistant on the Smithtown Board of Zoning Appeals, said the property absolutely needs a zoning change, but they cannot be sure of the particular zone change because Southern Land Company has not submitted an application to the board yet.

According to Vion, the New York Avenue property is currently in a central business zone and an R-10 zone, meaning the property is only allowed to have single-family homes with lot sizes of 10,000 square feet minimum. Multifamily-style housing is not permitted in the current zone.

The zoning board employee said the property would need to be changed to garden apartment zoning, or R-6 zoning which allows for town houses.

In order for Southern Land Company to be granted a zone change, it would need to schedule meetings with the planning board, the town board and the board of appeals, but the exact route the company would have to take is not clear because it has not yet submitted an application.

“In any event, they will have to change their zone, unless they want to create only single-family homes,” Vion said in a phone interview.

In February, the school board made the controversial decision to close Branch Brook Elementary School due to a lack of enrollment and shrinking district revenue, and some residents pleaded then that the district should work on selling the administrative building on New York Avenue instead of closing a building used for instruction.

Trustee Gladys Waldron was the lone “no” vote on the decision and her reasoning was the same as many community members.

“I think our energies and effort of administration and board should be placed right now on the selling of this building,” Waldron said at that meeting.