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Village of Port Jefferson

Photo from Melissa Paulson

A local mom, nonprofit founder and small business owner is looking to run for Village of Port Jefferson’s mayor seat.

Melissa Paulson, a Port Jefferson village resident since 2014, and owner of the online-only antique store, Melissa’s Cottage and Consignments, said she decided to go against incumbent Mayor Margot Garant because she believes the village needs a change.

A graduate of Hauppauge High School, she moved on to study special education and early education at Dowling College. While there, she worked for the America Reads program providing tutoring services to local children.

Paulson said after getting married and starting her family, she chose to move to the village because she had fond memories of it growing up.

“Coming here as a child and seeing how beautiful it is, but then now, I see the decline,” she said. “It’s very disheartening to see what has transpired. I specifically came here to raise my family, because the ambiance and historical history, and now we’re faced with vacancy, homelessness, acts of violence and safety concerns. So, it’s really time for leadership to really implement changes positively and effectively.”

Prior to her settling down in the village, Paulson’s daughter was diagnosed with cancer at just 18 months. It was then that the mayoral candidate decided to start up a nonprofit, Give Kids Hope Inc., in 2011 where she claims she has helped over 14,000 underprivileged families throughout the last year. 

Give Kids Hope is now located in Port Jefferson Station, after finding a permanent home at 4390 Nesconset Highway last year.

Paulson said her charity work led her to consider a run for mayor over the last couple of years, when she believed the current administration wasn’t fixing the problems she saw. 

“The proposed changes that were set to happen years ago unfortunately haven’t and after being here for so long, I realized it’s time for change,” she said. “I’m not a politician. I’m not a lawyer. I’m Melissa Paulson — I run a charity, but I want to be the voice for people and that’s what people need.”

She said she believes the village needs someone who’s “going to fight for them.”

“I will fight for what’s right,” she added. “I will listen to the voices of our residents, businesses and owners, even schools.  We all need to work together to really make positive changes.”

Some of those changes she is looking to work toward are making the village a safer place, and stopping its commercialization.

“It was a historical village, and now it’s being commercialized by big apartment buildings, and people want that to stop,” she said. 

Paulson said she wants to hold business owners in Upper Port more accountable for graffiti by issuing fines, and to bring businesses back to Down Port. She plans to address homelessness and raise police presence throughout the village. 

Although the village has created a task force to keep an eye on troublesome bicyclists, while also increasing its constable presence on the streets, Paulson said she would like to see more.

“We need police watching our residents. We need more jurisdiction of constables,” she said. “We need to begin finding ways to allow them to have more duties to protect our village more.”

Despite a random and unfortunate incident where a man was killed on Main Street in March, a recent report at the village board of trustees meeting stated that Port Jefferson’s crime rate has been on the decline.

Paulson acknowledged that, but she still sees concerns over the teenage bicyclists who have harassed visitors and residents in the past.

“I’ll feel safer if I see police officers walking around the village,” she said.

One concern that village residents noted when Paulson announced her candidacy was the fact that her two children are part of the Three Village school district.

“I don’t have a choice to attend Port Jefferson schools,” she said.

The village vote is scheduled for June 15.

“Every day I’m working hard to become your mayor,” she said. “This is more than an election, it’s my passion and mission to be the voice of the residents.”

Keep checking back with TBR News Media for more updates on the upcoming village election.

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The Dyett Sand-Lime Brick Factory is shown along the west shore of Port Jefferson Harbor at the former site of California Grove and Pavilion. Above photo by Arthur S. Greene; Photo from Kenneth C. Brady Digital Archive

The Port Jefferson Post Office Building, now the Regency condominiums at 202 Main Street, was unlike any other structure in the village’s downtown.

The Dyett Sand-Lime Brick Factory is shown along the west shore of Port Jefferson Harbor at the former site of California Grove and Pavilion. Above photo by Arthur S. Greene; Photo from Kenneth C. Brady Digital Archive

Completed in 1911 and remodeled over the years, the former Post Office Building was constructed of sand-lime brick, rather than common clay brick.

Prized for its natural white color, strength and durability, the attractive sand-lime brick was manufactured nearby at the Dyett Sand-Lime Brick Company.

The corporation was named for its founder, James H. Dyett (1864-1944), who served as the firm’s general manager and had invented a machine for pressing bricks.

In 1908, the company purchased acreage in Bay View Park on the west side of Port Jefferson Harbor and started building its factory.

Located at the former site of California Grove and Pavilion at the foot of Washington Street in today’s Poquott, the property was considered ideal for Dyett’s operations.

To make a sand-lime brick, a mixture of silica sand and hydrated lime is moistened, molded into the desired shape and cured under high pressure steam.

The abundant deposits of the superior quality sand found in and about Port Jefferson provided Dyett with a near inexhaustible supply of the main raw material needed at its plant. In addition, the company’s factory was located directly on Port Jefferson Harbor, enabling Dyett to ship its heavy pallets of brick by barge to waiting markets, easily and cheaply.

Despite this rosy picture, the corporation became embroiled in a fight with Brookhaven Town, which sought to dispossess an intrusive Dyett from unlawfully operating on a portion of the beach fronting the company’s property.

In 1912, the Supreme Court, Suffolk County Special Term, affirmed Brookhaven Town’s title to the land in dispute. The corporation considered its options, but an appeal was never pursued so the decision of the court stood.

The Port Jefferson Post Office Building, now the Regency condominiums, is pictured at 202 Main Street. The building was constructed of attractive sand-lime brick, prized for its natural white color, strength and durability. Photo by Arthur S. Greene; Photo from Kenneth C. Brady Digital Archive

Dyett’s honeymoon on the harbor over, the brick company was sold in 1914 to John A. Gibson of Far Rockaway, New York. The following year, Dyett opened a sand-lime plant in New Orleans, Louisiana.

During World War I, the former Dyett complex was taken over by O’Connor-Bennett and the Union Ship and Dock Company, which built four wooden coal barges for the United States Navy before moving the yard’s operations to Flushing, New York. 

Beginning in 1921, scows were moored and maintained at the old Dyett dock, which had been leased by the Great Eastern Gravel Corporation.

Alarmed by the growing industrialization of their community, the residents of Bay View Park formed an association in 1927 and voted to buy what was once the site of Dyett’s sand-lime brick factory, thus “forestalling the further encroachment of commercial interests.” The property was later purchased by the Incorporated Village of Poquott and is known today as “California Park.”

A look inside the new Sue La La Couture on E Main Street. Photo by Julianne Mosher

Originally located at 1506 Main Street in Upper Port, Sue La La Couture decided to move down to E Main Street for a new opportunity.

Although the East Main location is a bit smaller, owner Sue Gence said the new space will give her more exposure and have a different atmosphere than her former spot.

“I was waiting for uptown to change,” she said. “But after four years, nothing was done and my landlord was selling the building.”

Gence said she had the opportunity to stay at the old store, but she took it as a sign for her to make a change, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“I was closed for nine months,” she said. “I survived somehow.”

Known for selling dresses for prom, Sweet 16s, homecoming, flower girls, bridesmaids and mothers of the brides, the pandemic hit her business since all of those events were cancelled.

But Gence is feeling hopeful now that the vaccines are here and things are beginning to open back up.

“I feel like everybody wants to get out of the house and wants to celebrate something,” she said. “This season is actually really, really, really busy — especially down here.”

The old Sue La La Couture closed on Dec. 31 and reopened next to the former Max & Millie storefront in mid-January. 

Gence, a Rocky Point resident, said she opened the store when she was just 33 because she loved glitter and making other women feel beautiful. 

“Eventually I want to design my own clothes and create my own brand,” she said. 

Sue La La Couture is open five days a week — closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays — by appointment only.

Marianne Hennigar inside her new office on E Main Street in Port Jefferson. Photo by Julianne Mosher

There’s a new approach to releasing trauma and alleviating pain management. 

Marianne Hennigar, a pain specialist with certification in clinical massage and specialist in guided focus therapies, is making it her goal to give people support on their emotional journeys and simply feel better. 

The owner of a new space, located at 156 E Main Street in Port Jefferson, her office is tucked away on the busy main road. Through the gates, walking down toward the door of Insight Healing Ministries, visitors are greeted by Hennigar, who’s energy immediately makes them feel at ease. 

Her job as a health and wellness coach is to heal her clients and help make changes in their lives. 

“I collaborate with the client so that I’m not telling them what to do, because we want them to comply,” she said. “It’s a very non-bossy way of helping people.”

Hennigar has had an interesting career. Since 1994, she had been a clinical and orthopedic massage therapist. Although she doesn’t do massage anymore, she is still a pain specialist who is able to target different ailments through talk therapy and hands-on work.

“You have your general practitioner doctor, and then you have your surgeon who does something very specific,” she said. “I’m the surgeon in that case.” 

She said that she can help combat things like chiropractic care gone bad, or issues that aren’t being resolved through physical therapy.

“I’m really able to mobilize people’s tissues and help them get back into alignment, and live a more painful and free life,” she said, “But also give them instruction, and guidance on how they might want to use their body differently, so that they keep themselves out of pain, and they gain the strength they need.”

With certification from the Mayo Clinic, Hennigar helps build a plan that can work to the client’s individual needs. Some topics she’s successfully helped others with are cutting down on or stopping smoking, increasing nutrition and losing weight, changing toxic habits and getting more movement in their daily routine.

Hennigar uses guided focus therapies, including Somatic Experiencing and Brainspotting — both body-based modalities which support the client harnessing their own internal wisdom through focus to discover healing — to help people deal with trauma. 

“Basically, I’m  a one-stop shop for wellness,” she said. “And I will do a mix of all those modalities.”

If that wasn’t enough, she said she’s also working on her master’s in psychology from Liberty University.

But this isn’t a new hobby, she said. 

Since childhood, Hennigar has been fascinated by how people work. A speaker of several languages, Hennigar moved with family to Europe at 8 years old. Raised on the Island of Crete and in Spain, she realized early on that she wanted to help people feel good and live their lives to their fullest. 

When she came back to the states in her teenage years, she began working toward her practices, gradually adding more services and certifications, while raising her family.

She had a practice in Atlanta for 13 years, and then moved to Arkansas. This past summer, she and her husband moved to Coram and chose Port Jefferson village as her new office space in January.

“I love that we’ve been able to build the energy in here,” she said. “I love how it feels down here, and I needed to be in a population center where there’s a lot of people coming in and out. I wanted to be a part of a community and Port Jeff just felt right.”

Hennigar said the space is designed for play. Inside the office are dozens of different stations where the client can focus on objects through vision or touch, or a place where they can meditate. 

“The sky is the limit with this work,” she said.

Right now, many of Hennigar’s clients are utilizing telehealth, but she is accepting in-person appointments. First sessions are free, and payments are made through a donation box in the front.

“I accept donations, because people will come with all different economic abilities,” she said. “I offer them to go ahead and just make any type of offering that’s comfortable to them … The most important thing is that we get you to feeling better.”

Hennigar said that anyone who can use a little support, and who could use a peace of mind can seek her services.

“I love seeing people grow,” she said. “And even though a lot of this work is based on trauma models, what you really often want to see is people growing and blossoming, and for certain people, they come to a greater sense of their spiritual self, which really makes them happy because they feel connected.”

For more information, visit insighthealingministries.com or call Marianne at 404-944-8397.

Above: Mayor Margot Garant with Timmy McNaulty, Brier Fox, Blake Wlischar and Grant Welischar pose for a picture while cleaning up the beach. Photos by Julianne Mosher

The community came together to make sure the Village of Port Jefferson’s shoreline is squeaky clean.

Hometown Hope, a local nonprofit made up of local residents who love, support and want to do good within the village, hosted its first annual beach cleanup event at all Port Jefferson-area beaches.

On Sunday, April 18, more than 200 volunteers, in conjunction with Sea Tow, Sheep Pasture Landscaping and Maggio Environmental, gathered (safely with masks) at the private beaches outlining Port Jeff. Starting at Centennial Beach, through Belle Terre Beach, McCallister Park, West Beach and East Beach, families and local groups gloved up to fill dozens of garbage bags on the warm and sunny day.

Diane Tafuro, a board member with Hometown Hope, said creating an event like this was a “no brainer.”

“We’re trying to get back to the community and keep our beaches clean,” she said. “Which is one of the best things about Port Jefferson village.”

Tafuro said this isn’t just a one-time thing the group plans to do. 

With the mission statement to provide and connect resources and support in times of need to all Port Jeff Village residents by promoting a movement of spreading kindness. Hometown Hope strives to uplift through wellness, resilience and compassionate understanding within the community.

The local Cub Scout troop took one section, while varsity athletes cleaned up East Beach. There, they found a large, heavy tire filled with sand. 

“This is exactly the type of thing why we love to live here,” Mayor Margot Garant said. “Our community comes together, and they teach their kids to start loving the place that they live … That’s why we call ourselves Port Jeff Strong.”

To find out more about Hometown Hope visit their website at hometownhopepj.org.

Bill and Lauren Brown, the new owners of SkinMed Spa in Port Jefferson. Photo by Julianne Mosher

A new spa has opened up Down Port, but it’s different than the rest.

Lauren Brown, a village resident and registered cosmetic nurse, decided during the COVID-19 pandemic that she wanted to own her own space. 

“I’ve always wanted to do something like this,” she said. “The pandemic just got me reevaluating life and seeing what really matters and where my passions are.”

With her husband, Bill, on board to help, Brown officially took over the former Max & Millie storefront at 142 E Main Street in February. She said it felt like destiny.

In the industry for eight years, Brown has worked for dermatologists and plastic surgeons. While in those offices, she noticed that patients were tired of taking medications, antibiotics and putting chemicals into their skins. 

“I thought about it and there are so many great, all-natural treatments out there and other things that we can do instead of always loading ourselves up with medicine,” she said. 

So that’s when she got to work.

After finding the space in January, and signing the lease a month later, she and her husband completely revamped inside the former clothing boutique that closed in December. 

“I’ve noticed that a lot of the businesses that do really well around here are many of these holistic businesses, because people are looking for more natural treatments to take care of their skin,” she said. 

SkinMed Spa offers all the things that a typical spa doesn’t bring to the table. 

“We are a place that offers all-natural rejuvenation services that are really targeting conditions of the hair, skin and nails,” Brown said.

An inside look at SkinMed Spa in Port Jefferson. Photo by Julianne Mosher

Some treatments are for thinning hair, hair loss, acne and its scars, facial rejuvenation for fine lines and the breakdown of collagen. Brown said that SkinMed Spa is a place where troublesome issues can be fixed.

“If you actually have something going on in your skin, or you’re trying to maintain your skin to keep it up, this is the place for you,” she said. “I just wanted to offer a very calming and relaxing environment where people could just come and look around and even ask questions.”

Brown said her spa is a place where there is no judgement. Part of her store is an apothecary where she will sell affordable skin products that won’t break the bank.

“We sell affordable skincare products that are all natural that don’t have any dyes, sulfates or chemicals in them,” she said. “And customers can actually sit down with someone who knows about skin, and that I can help guide them in the right place to help treat some of these conditions.”

SkinMed Spa officially opened its doors on April 1 and since then, Brown has already gotten dozens of happy clients.

“What I’ve noticed over the last two weeks is everyone that I’ve been treating — within 24 hours — their relative or best friend is booking a treatment which honestly makes me feel over the moon,” she said. “I’m not just trying to do a facial treatment. I really wanted to have people’s skin be transformed and be happy with it.”

Bill said the services his wife offers are medical grade.

“You’re getting that kind of quality without going to a doctor’s office,” he said. “You’re getting real quality service in a more boutique kind of fashion.”

Some of the services include micro needling, which helps regenerate cells, plasma lifts, microdermabrasion, dermaplane, jet peels and no-needle lip plumping with hyaluronic acid.

“I wanted it to be almost like when you’re walking in the city, and you find like a really cool, swanky place,” she said.

But without the price tag. Brown said the services offered are a fraction of the cost compared to a doctor’s office.

“I wanted to be different where people could escape and you could think about yourself for a little bit,” she said. “How many how often do we put ourselves first? This is a place where you can relax, you can turn everything off, focus on yourself for a good hour, and go home with some stuff that makes you feel happy without spending a ton of money.”

SkinMed Spa is taking appointments online. To book, visit skinmedspapj.com.

“If it’s not the right service for you, we’ll talk about it,” Brown said. “It’s not we’re not going to just do something if it’s not right for your skin.”

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File photo by Heidi Sutton

By John Loughlin

The Port Jefferson Board Trustees held their bi-weekly Zoom meeting on April 19.

After their approval of minutes, changes and amendments from the previous meeting on April 5, they got down to business.

One of the first topics of discussion was Harbor Square Mall. The village said they are looking to take some parking spots out to stop the constant crowd that it brings. The purpose of switching and eliminating parking lot spots is to keep the parking moving and open, and there is not a lot of parking spaces for the restaurant and apartment complex that is in the mall.

Mayor Margot Garant made a special thanks to the families and children who helped local nonprofit Hometown Hope clean up beaches last weekend.

There were teams that went McAlister Park, Centennial and East Beach where they cleaned up everything that was necessary to cleanup.

For leisure as the warm weather hits, the basketball league is starting up in June from ages 12 to 15.

Also, a tentative date of May 21, will potentially hold a movie night for high school seniors who missed out on their final year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Photo by Julianne Mosher

The Village Boutique saw an opportunity a few storefronts away and decided to move in.

The former Thomas Kinkade art gallery located at 128 Main Street in the village has stayed vacant for more than 13 months, said Abby Buller, The Village Boutique’s owner.

So she talked to her landlord — who owns her former spot at 216A Main as well as the Kinkade space — and decided to move down the street. 

“I think the location is a little bit better and because of the way this store is configured, it allowed me to expand more into shoes and accessories the other store didn’t allow me to do,” Buller said.  

And the new store is a better fit.

Since originally opening up in May 2019, Buller said her store carries a variety of women’s apparel for ages 16 and up. The new, much larger, space allowed her to begin selling footwear and more accessories.

“I’ve always wanted to have shoes in my store, but the back storage area was just too small,” she said. “This gave me two storage areas, and the space to display shoes of the other store didn’t have — so the configuration is what’s different.”

Buller said after things opened back up, she wanted to use the opportunity and start fresh. In January, she and her landlord came to an agreement, closing down her former location on Feb. 23.

It took her and her business partner about two weeks to move everything over, steam it all, barcode it and of course do some construction and cleaning up. The new Village Boutique opened on March 15. 

“I’m getting people into the store who said, ‘Are you new?’ and when I said no, they would say they never saw me up the block,” she said. “So, I think the new location will pay itself off in the end.”

Owner Abby Buller inside her new space. Photo by Julianne Mosher

The Village Boutique, Buller said, is the type of place where a shopper won’t have to step foot inside a big-box store, or shop online, ever again. She personally shops for her inventory in the city and brings in designers from all over the world.

“If I can’t touch the clothes, I can’t buy them,” she said. “Because we first look for style, then when we look with touch. If you don’t like the way it feels, you’re not going to buy something.”

She also said she has a price point for everyone’s budget.

“We have a little bit of Manhattan in Suffolk County,” she said.

Buller said the last couple of years she has grown her shop in the village has even led her to now make the jump to move out here, herself. 

Born and raised in Queens, since 2019 she has been commuting the almost two-hour drive to Port Jeff every day.

She said she just sold her place in Bayside, and is looking to find a new place in the Port Jefferson, Rocky Point or Mount Sinai areas to call home.

“I remember being a child and a day trip for us would be coming out to Port Jeff,” she said. “So, when I decided to own a business, my concept was that I didn’t want to be in a strip mall. I wanted to be in a town. And I had such fond memories of this village so I took the jump.”

The Village Boutique is open Monday through Thursday 11 a.m. until 5 p.m., 11 a.m. until 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 11 a.m. until 5 p.m. Sunday’s.

Members from the Port Jefferson Community Garden Committee at the Beach Street location. Photo by Julianne Mosher

Just in time for spring, Port Jefferson’s community garden is planned and ready to get started.

On March 15, the Village Board of Trustees voted an overwhelming “yes” to the new pilot community garden program. 

The idea behind it, Trustee Rebecca Kassay — who “planted the seed” on the project — said it would be able to give residents an opportunity to grow local, organic food and enjoy outdoor recreation together, while creating learning opportunities for its villagers. The garden would be dedicated to maintaining parkland and be a staple to the community.

And she felt that this quaint area could benefit from its own garden.

“I’ve been around vegetable gardens since I was born,” she said. “My father kept — and still keeps — an impressive half-acre in St. James.”

After completing a degree in Environmental Studies, she moved to Harlem where she found a tense neighborhood being gentrified had one common ground — Jenny Benitez’s community garden in Riverside Park. 

“It was in my time volunteering there that I most clearly saw how this simple human tradition humbles, delights and invites unity between people from all ages and backgrounds,” she said.

Since November 2020, a group of 11 residents volunteered their time to become part of the Community Garden Committee, hoping to launch the garden on an abandoned, vacant plot of land on Beach Street. 

Village gardener Caran Markson said that a long time ago, the land was once a playground with broken-down equipment. Since it was removed, it has been bare, looking for a new purpose.

“The property has been empty for as long as I can remember,” she said. “It was very underutilized.”

For months, the group researched, planned and eventually implemented a design for the village’s first community garden. 

A rendering of the potential community garden located on Beach Street in the Village of Port Jefferson. Photo from Rebecca Kassay

According to Kassay, the garden will initially consist of 16 raised beds, with some being double-high beds for residents with different abilities. The garden will be accessible to all.

“Beach Street is a great little spot for Port Jefferson Village’s first community garden,” she said. “It is a flat piece of underutilized village parkland with plenty of sun for residents to grow some organic veggies.”

But the best part is, the Beach Street plantings are set to begin this summer, and if the pilot garden project is successful, the committee expects to expand at the Beach Street site in 2022, and in subsequent years, create a second garden site at the Highlands parkland uptown.

Kassay added the group is also looking to pilot Port Jefferson’s first composting program at Beach Street, after some research of area-appropriate methods, pending community response.

“This large effort is anticipated between 2023 and 2024,” she said.

Markson said the 16 beds will be planted with vegetables.

“Outside of the raised beds, we’re going to hopefully a whole bunch of berries, maybe grapes, and we can plant native flowers just to beautify this village,” she added. “It’s going to pull the community together.”

On March 15, Mayor Margot Garant and the village board contributed $4,000 of village beautification funds toward the project, specifically to irrigation and raised bed materials. 

Committee members have already begun collecting in-kind and monetary donations from community members to meet the project’s $8,600 2021 budget and will be circulating donation material mid-April.

“No contribution is too small,” she said. “You can find a committee member for more information and/or to give a donation at the weekly Village Farmer’s Market starting May 2.”

Once established, the garden committee will raise money throughout the year with suggested-donation programming and fundraisers.

Kassay said they are looking to break ground on the project May 1, with a ribbon cutting July 10.

“I’m really looking forward to giving fellow residents the ability to grow their own produce,” Kassay said. “Whether it’s a fun family project, a way to cut down on grocery bills, a way to meet new people, part of a journey to better health … I’ve been fortunate to have access to gardens throughout my life, and now I’m grateful for the opportunity to share this with my community.”

Photo by Julianne Mosher

The former Café Bada-Bing finally went “bada-bye.”

Steps away from the train station in Port Jefferson, construction crews began to knock down the former vacant bar on April 12.

Last known as the Bahia Bar & Discotec, the plot will soon be home to a new mixed-use site with 45 units of housing and more than 3,000 square-feet of ground floor commercial space to be called Port Jefferson Crossing.

The company behind the build, Conifer Realty, LLC, joined village officials as demolition began.

Photo by Julianne Mosher

Village Mayor Margot Garant put her hard hat on and got behind the bulldozer, to help knock down its first wall. 

“This is a revitalization project that’s been going on now for many years,” she said. “We’re finally out of the planning process and into the building process.”

This is the first step toward giving Upper Port its much-needed facelift, including revitalizing the train station, building affordable and safe housing for young people and senior citizens close to the LIRR.

According to the IDA, Port Jefferson Crossing is a $24 million project that will construct 45 units of residential workforce housing in the heart of Port Jefferson.

The affordable housing component will be given out based on a lottery system, and will be located at 1609-1615 Main Street, currently the site of two vacant buildings.

“The public private partnership with the Brookhaven IDA, Suffolk County and the Village of Port Jefferson is instrumental in bringing Port Jefferson Crossing to fruition,” said Roger Pine, vice president of Development of Conifer, in a statement. “This is a long-term partnership that will bring continued revitalization to areas most in need in Long Island.” 

Garant added that this project was a collective effort of several state agencies to bring life back to uptown, and Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone (D) complimented the mayor for her efforts. 

“Some good things are happening,” he said. “You’re making things happen here on the local level. You’re doing the things necessary to create   vibrancy, to create opportunity to create a place that people will flock to here, right around this train station.”

He said that a mixed-use building like this one will make the region more attractive to young people.

Photo by Julianne Mosher

“We need to build a growing sustainable innovation economy,” he added. “You’re at the fore-front of doing that work and making it happen. And certainly, building more affordable housing in our downtown is key, not only to revitalizing and creating more vibrancy downtown, but to creating a prosperous economy.”

The land-clearing demo will take about two weeks before its ground-breaking event and the actual building.