Kings Park’s downtown is going to need more efficient parking, better walkways and a facelift if it wants to experience a revitalization, according to the latest studies.
Larisa Ortiz, urban planner and principal of downtown planning firm Larisa Ortiz Associates, presented the results of a market analysis study focused on what’s needed to revitalize downtown Kings Park at a Jan. 25 Smithtown town board meeting. While getting funding to sewer downtown Main Street has been a long-term priority, there are several key points business owners and the town could begin working on, according to Ortiz.
“What we found is that you don’t have just one downtown,” Ortiz said. “Kings Park is actually three distinct areas.”
The study broke down King Park’s downtown into the three areas: “restaurant row,” including Park Bake Shop, Cafe Red, Relish and Ciro’s; “the civic heart,” the area near Kings Park library and the Long Island Rail Road station; and “car-centric retail,” which revolves around Tanzi Plaza and Kings Park Plaza shopping centers.
In a survey of residents and business owners, Ortiz said one of the most common complaints was the lack of parking for customers in the downtown areas.
“There’s more than enough parking at the civic node where we have a municipal lot,” she said, with similar findings in the other two areas slated for revitilization. “It feels like it’s tight, but when we look at the parking ratio there’s sufficient parking there.”
Rather, Ortiz said the study suggested the municipal lot is inconveniently located far from restaurants and stores, and that several parking lots could be restriped to fit more vehicles for better efficiency.
“If I had one surprise, I thought there would be a lot more parking required than what was recommended by the market survey,” Smithtown Supervisor Ed Wehrheim (R) said. “ We need some, but not as much. In that analysis, there were some parking areas, municipal and commuter parking lots not being 100 percent utilized.”
Ortiz said her firm’s analysis showed Kings Park shoppers have a difficult time crossing Main Street, particularly at the intersection with Church Street near the Kings Park branch of The Smithtown Library.
“If people can’t cross from the library to Main Street, you have lost customers,” the urban planner said.
Ortiz’s other suggestions were to improve sidewalks and pedestrian crossings, and consider relocating the farmer’s market held in the municipal parking lot — 60 percent of whose customers are from out of town — to a new location on the south side of Main Street.
“It was exciting to see that the Kings Park farmers market creates stronger economic spillovers and benefits our local businesses,” said Linda Henninger, president of Kings Park Civic Association and founder of the farmer’s market.
Other suggestions for downtown improvement included encouraging business owners to upgrade the look of their facade, changes to town code to allow for better signage for businesses and creation of a restaurant group for group marketing and greater exposure.
“This market study is another tool which will be useful in our continued effort to revitalize Kings Park’s downtown,” Henninger said.
Next, Wehrheim said Kings Park Chamber of Commerce and civic association will work to combine the market study results with the revitalization plan previously made by LI Vision to come up with a final conceptual plan.
The full presentation made before Smithtown Town Board can be viewed on the Kings Park Civic Associations website at https://www.kingsparkcivic.com.