A surprising consensus emerged among experts at Blank Slate Media’s recent town hall on revitalizing Nassau’s downtown business districts – that their future was bright.
This was somewhat unexpected given the toll downtown businesses have taken from online retailers and shopping malls even before a deadly pandemic shut businesses and kept customers home for many months.
Empty storefronts were common in downtowns like Great Neck before COVID-19.
And, yes, it is true that the five panelists who participated in the town hall consisted of Nassau government officials and business leaders who promote and, in some cases, profit from vibrant downtowns.
But the panelists made a strong case that threatened downtown business districts, which serve as the heart of many communities, can thrive going forward. Provided government, developers and residents work together.
Eric Alexander, the director of Vision Long Island, said 20 downtowns had done this before the pandemic hit by presenting “very robust” plans for redevelopment based on government, businesses and residents working closely together – a key all five panelists said was essential to success.
Alexander acknowledged that most downtowns in Nassau had lost an average of three stores during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But, he added, foot traffic had continued due to a “mass exodus” from New York City at the pandemic’s outset and the desire of people following COVID protocols to get out of their homes and interact with other human beings, at least at a distance and while wearing a mask.
This is actually a model that shopping malls, once the bane of downtown districts, are now pursuing themselves.
A vice president at a large development company recently said at a Long Island Regional Planning Council meeting that malls now facing store vacancies are being developed into towns that include residences, offices and dining.
The five panelists agreed that downtown redevelopment going forward must be built around transit-oriented, mixed-use developments.
“To save our downtowns, what you have to do is put boots on the ground,” said Anthony Bartone, the managing partner of Terwilliger & Properties, a development company. “We have to put people in the downtowns. Once we bring in vibrance, retail will follow.”
“The next generation wants to be near the train for ease of access to mass transit,” Bartone added. “The community wants to be able to walk downtown, not have to have an automobile. Believe it or not, this is a concept of many Long Islanders who live in transit-oriented developments in the downtown, actually not having cars here on the road.”
Farmingdale Mayor Ralph Ekstrand, who has won acclaim for turning a village filled with vacant storefronts into a bustling downtown, said his board has approved eight transit-oriented development projects.
“It sort of snowballs,” Ekstrand said. “Once you have success with one transit-oriented development project, others follow.”
The mayor added that the village’s first affordable housing development had recently been approved in an effort to “keep the youth on Long Island” and encourage them to visit the downtown area.
A second key to the panelists’ optimism is the recognition by governments ranging from Washington to local villages of the need to support downtown redevelopment.
Federal funds have already begun to flow through President Joe Biden’s COVID rescue plan. That is now being followed by $1 billion in grants and relief for small businesses recently enacted in the state budget.
This includes $800 million in direct grants to small businesses that suffered losses due to the pandemic, $40 million in grants to nonprofit arts and cultural institutions and $35 million in refundable tax credits for restaurants that were subject to an extended ban on indoor dining.
Nassau is receiving $400 million in stimulus and relief funds and Richard Kessel, the chairman of the Nassau County Industrial Development Agency and the Nassau County Local Economic Assistance Corp., said the county has formed a committee to review proposals to use some of that money to aid downtowns.
“We want to take a look not just at the big projects, you know, the Amazons, the superblocks, the transit-oriented developments,” Kessel said during the panel discussion. “We got to help downtowns. And I think we’ve made some very good strides, but we have to do a lot more.”
This is consistent with a welcome focus of the IDA and the Nassau County Local Economic Assistance Corp. under Kessel and County Executive Laura Curran on downtown development.
We urge the county to find ways to aid entertainment venues such as the Landmark in Port Washington, My Father’s Place in Roslyn and the Gold Coast Arts Center in Great Neck. They are essential to attracting new residents and keeping in place those that are here.
The opportunity and threat is particularly high with the Gold Coast Arts Center and the building it shares with a former movie theater.
The development of the former movie theater into an entertainment center for movies, theater and live music would be a great boost for a once-thriving downtown area now filled with empty storefronts. Failing to develop the site would leave a gaping hole in the community.
There are several other obstacles to development success.
Bartone noted that developers are looking for communities that are “business friendly.”
This includes areas that already permit transit-oriented, mixed-use developments so that developers don’t face long and costly efforts for case-by-case changes – which unfortunately is the rule in the Town of North Hempstead.
Towns and villages that make it difficult to build are known through word-of-mouth among developers and are avoided, Bartone said.
Dennis Grossman, president of the Nassau Council of Chambers of Commerce and the Great Neck Chamber of Commerce, said the Great Neck area had numerous projects in development and that such ideas needed the cooperation of villages and residents.
“We also need the cooperation of the mayors and residents in terms of parking and valet parking, which I battle over all the time in certain areas, because people don’t know where the parking is, even though we prepare maps and other things like that,” Grossman said.
The county also needs to address a shortage of marshals to conduct fire inspections. This was cited as a problem during a redevelopment town hall two years ago and yet inexplicably continues to this day, needlessly delaying and adding costs to new businesses.
The county could also assist in surveying parking needs in downtown business districts across Nassau County and helping increase the number of parking spots when needed.
The proposed developers of the Macy’s location in Manhasset had included underground parking in their redevelopment plans.
It’s time local governments began thinking more like owners of shopping centers, which in a sense they are, and come up with solutions to match the competition.
Likewise, the county could assist in developing best practices for metered parking in downtowns and to help finance new meters when needed.
The only place in Nassau County where metered parking exists is in downtown business districts.
This places them at a disadvantage with online shopping, malls and strip shopping centers whose customers never face the expense of parking meters, parking tickets or unfriendly meter agents.
Until someone can figure out how to wean local villages off the revenue that parking meters and tickets provide, the least that can be done is to minimize the damage to customer relations.
We agree with our expert panel that downtown business districts are well-positioned for a bright future.
We should think big and make it happen.
