Developers will look to turn the old Huntington Town Hall into a Hampton Inn hotel. The $24 million proposed project by Holtsville-based Huntington Village Hotel Partners LLC would turn the more than 100-year-old former Town Hall, located at 227 Main St., into an 80-room hotel.
The Town Hall building would be converted to the hotel’s lobby, breakfast room and gym. A 53,636-square-foot addition will be used for the guest rooms.
Rosario Cassata and George Tsunis, developers for the project, also intend to buy the property adjacent and across the street of the old government building for parking.
In addition, the project secured $2.8 million in tax breaks from the Suffolk Industrial Development Agency.
The tax breaks were awarded at a Feb. 13 Suffolk IDA meeting and include $1.8 million off property tax over a 15-year period. According to IDA documents, about 128 workers will be employed during the construction phase of the hotel. Once completed, the hotel will have 14 employees who will earn just over $39,700 per year.
Tony Catapano, executive director of the Suffolk County IDA, said he believes the hotel will bring in visitors from outside and around Long Island.
“The historic nature [of the building] will draw people to it, there will definitely be interest from residents in Suffolk and Nassau County,” he said.
The proximity of the hotel to the downtown area is another plus, the executive director of the agency said.
“The hotel from downtown Huntington village is really walkable, and they’ll be able to take advantage of the local amenities,” he said. “The old Town Hall building is the eastern entrance to downtown and I think retrofitting it into a hotel will make [the entrance] beautiful.”
The IDA granted the tax incentives using a tourism exception to the state law that prohibits helping retailers. As part of the IDA’s Long Island First policy, the developers are required to buy materials from local companies and employ local construction workers.
This is not the first time a hotel has been proposed for the old Town Hall, back in 2014, the IDA backed a different project that would have cost upward of $10 million. It would have received $3 million in tax breaks over 15 years. The project ultimately failed to get off the ground.
According to IDA documents, the hotel is anticipated to open in the second quarter of 2021.
