$122M Baldwin projects gets IDA assist

Two Baldwin development projects will receive economic incentives from the Town of Hempstead Industrial Development Agency. 

The two projects, part of an ongoing effort to revitalize the area’s downtown, include a $106 million, 59,342-square-foot mixed-use development from Garden City-based Breslin Realty and a $16 million, 32,504-square-foot workforce apartment complex from Rochester-based Park Grove Development and the Community Development Corp. of Long Island. 

The Breslin project will bring a five-story building with 215 rental units over 5,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space to a 1.8-acre site at the southeast corner of Grand Avenue and Sunrise Highway across from the Baldwin Long Island Rail Road station. 

The mixed-use development, which replaces a former car storage facility, will bring a mix of 47 studio apartments, 132 one-bedrooms and 36 two-bedroom units, with 21 offered as workforce housing with reduced rents. The project will also feature parking for 251 vehicles and a park that would link Grand Avenue with Sunrise Highway. 

The other IDA-assisted project, dubbed Baldwin Commons, will bring 33 workforce apartments—27 one-bedroom units and 6 two-bedroom units—in a four-story building on a half-acre property at 785 Merrick Road, replacing a vacant diner and auto storage yard. 

Amenities at Baldwin Commons will include a fitness room, laundry and a community room on the ground floor. The apartments will be leased to renters earning 60 percent of the area median income, with about 30 percent earmarked for seniors.  

The two projects will be the first in a zoning overlay called the Grand Avenue Urban Renewal Area, that was created by the town in 2008 to encourage investment and redevelopment. 

“These two projects will provide multiple benefits to the town,” Fred Parola, CEO of the Hempstead IDA, said in a written statement. “In addition to serving as a catalyst that will bring much-needed change to Baldwin and increased economic activity in the community, it will remove long-time eyesores, alleviate a shortage of rental housing in the town, and provide increase revenues to the various taxing jurisdictions.” 

The Breslin project received a sales tax exemption, mortgage recording tax exemption, and a 30-year payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement from the IDA. Current taxes on the unimproved site are $105,034 and the new development will ultimately add $2.4 million annually to the tax base by the end of the proposed 30-year PILOT. Tax payments over the life of the proposed PILOT agreement will total $34.4 million, compared with $5.2 million that would be collected without the project. 

Baldwin Commons received a 20-year PILOT with an option for a 10-year extension if the project remains in compliance with terms of the benefits package, which include the PILOT and mortgage recording tax and sales tax exemptions. Annual taxes on the site are currently $28,939 and will rise to $85,661 after 30 years, according to the IDA statement. 

l