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An abandoned hospital site will soon give rise nearly 340 residential units in the Village of Amityville.
Construction began on the new AvalonBay residential complex in Amityville Wednesday, with Amityville Village Mayor Dennis Siry, Town of Babylon officials, IDA representatives, and a construction team digging their shovels into the dirt.
The Virginia-based nationwide real estate company will construct 317 apartments and 21 townhouse at the 7.6-acre site at 366 Broadway, where Brunswick Hospital operated for over 100 years.
“It’s great for the village, just what we needed,” Mayor Siry said in a telephone interview. “AvalonBay is a very good respected company, so we’re lucky to have them here in the village.”
The old hospital property has been vacant since 2005 and much of the property’s structures demolished in 2012. Among the proposals at village hall over the years, according to Siry, were Lowes, an assisted living facility and a concert hall.
The approved apartment complex proposal will boast 5,853 square feet of amenity space, four courtyards, including one with an in-ground pool and three-level parking garage.
Siry said the AvalonBay construction will be completed in 2023, and expects the complex to reach capacity that fall.
The parcel of land being developed in Amityville.
potential business boom
The AvalonBay project is not the only act in town.
Village by the Bay, a 115-unit complex with one-and two-bedroom apartments and studios, opened last November. Siry said another smaller apartment project that will see 33 units put in place of a vacant, rundown movie theater is expected to open up next spring.
“We’re getting a lot of people interested in the village now,” Siry said. “And I think AvalonBay is a big of that formula.”
With all the new residential action and some work from the business development committee, Amityville’s mayor said he expects the village’s downtown to grow northward. He said the downtown does not have many vacant storefront, but it is “just a couple of blocks long.”
“It will definately help our downtown because now we’ll start having people want to bring there businesses,” Siry said. “We’ll have more feet on the street, one of the major pieces to revitalizing a downtown.
“This is definitely the biggest thing that’s happened in Amityville in my lifetime.”
Top: Rendering of the new AvalonBay complex coming to Amityville (credit: Facebook).
