The Village of Great Neck Plaza is reviewing an environmental assessment of developer and Great Neck Chamber of Commerce President Hooshang Nematzadeh’s proposed Grace Avenue apartment and retail building, the latest step in the project’s months-long approval process.
The board received the lengthy document Tuesday and did not have time to review it ahead of Wednesday night’s board meeting, Village of Great Neck Plaza Mayor Jean Celender said.
““We just recently got the expanded environmental assessment. It came in yesterday,” Celender said.
The project, which has been the subject of several hearings since last Summer, will be discussed as the board’s next meeting. That meeting has been pushed back to Sept. 11 to avoid a conflict with Rosh Hashanah.
The latest plans call for a building that would stand 35 feet tall and include 4,800 square feet of first-floor retail space, 30 residential units and a continuous curved balcony. The original plan called for a five-story, 52-foot building that drew board concerns over density, height, parking and aesthetic design.
Nematzadeh has said many of those concerns have now been addressed.
Nematzadeh has requested two code variances, for a smaller-than-required setback and the right to build a fourth story.
Nematzadeh presented the board with three architectural designs for the project in a late June meeting that he said reflected the numerous modifications requested by the board over a period of months to bring the project closer in line with village code. A representative from the project’s architectural firm said at the June meeting that once a design was agreed on, the firm would prepare a full rendering of the project.
Also at the meeting, the board granted approval for Canterbury Road-based endodontist Peter Rybak to renovate office space in preparation for a future expansion of his business.
Rybak said he has plans to eventually merge the adjacent office space with his existing practice, but that he had no fixed date for when that would take place.
“I’m basically just doing the renovations to make it like my office is right now, but the equipment won’t be moved for X amount of years,” Rybak said.
The office space would be renovated to include additional examination rooms, and Rybak said he would consider bringing a second specialist into his practice when business demands it.
