The fate of a $63 million dollar expansion of the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System is in the hands of the Village of Lake Success and the Town of North Hempstead, in a project that would see the former Lockheed Martin site at 1111 Marcus Avenue in Lake Success fully developed.
“We’ve had tenants who’ve wanted to come in now but we can’t accept them,” said William DiConza, attorney for property owner i-Park Lake Success Partners, LLC. “Nor can the hospital grow until we go through this process.”
North Shore-LIJ leases 400,000 square feet of buildable space within the 1.3 million-square-foot complex.
Known as the Center for Advanced Medicine, North Shore-LIJ’s on-site services in the Lake-Success location include outpatient mammography, radiology, and oncology.
If approved, the hospital system would more than double the Monter Cancer Center with a $28.2 million expansion. It would also relocate outpatient radiology from the Long Island Jewish Medical Center across the street to the Center for Advanced Medicine in a $35.2 million project.
Integrating outpatient services is more convenient than forcing cancer patients to drive from one place to another, said Terry Lynam, a spokesman for North Shore-LIJ.
“It just makes it much more convenient for patients to get those services in an outpatient facility,” he said.
Before the project can go forward, the village and the Town of North Hempstead must approve changes related to on-site parking, including two proposed parking garages, according to an environmental document filed with the Village of Lake Success known as a Draft Environmental Impact Statement.
The Village of Lake Success will be accepting comments from the public on the project until June 23. A public hearing is scheduled for May 23 at Lake Success Village Hall. The proposal will be examined by the Town of North Hempstead’s Board of Zoning Appeals on May 25 in an effort by the property owner to obtain a setback variance
Both Town of North Hempstead Supervisor Jon Kaiman and Village of Lake Success Mayor Ronald Cooper declined to comment on the applications.
Road improvements to Marcus Avenue and Lakeville Road must also be approved by Nassau County and the state Department of Transportation.
Also requiring approval are changes sought by the property owner that would amend a 2002 agreement with the Village of Lake Success which capped the amount of allowable office space on the property.
A nearly 115,000 square foot warehouse would be converted to non-warehouse uses and 122,000 square feet of additional office space would be rented.
“We are ready to move forward,” DiConza said. “We are cautiously optimistic that the whole thing can be concluded by the end of the summer.”
At full capacity, traffic would increase about 30 percent or less on weekdays, with traffic on Saturday increasing about 63 percent, according to the environmental impact statement.
Sgt. Glenn Poli of the Lake Success Police Department said the site required a “marked increase” in police activity as it was developed, according to the impact statement.
“Also keep in mind that a majority of these calls require, at least, a two-car response, doubling the amount of man-hours required to handle the location,” Poli wrote in a letter reproduced in the document.
Poli said medical uses could require “dramatically” increase the police response rate to the site, with more vehicular traffic causing more traffic accidents.
Although members of the Village of Lake Success Planning Board were concerned about a lack of available parking, DiConza said it is an issue that will only affect business owners.
“Anything that might potentially go wrong with this property will only affect this property,” DiConza said.
Bound by Marcus Avenue to the north, Union Turnpike to the South, and Lakevillle Road to the West, the area supports a dense concentration of commercial and office buildings.
The 94-acre site was constructed by the U.S. Government in 1941 and used as a defense plant for Sperry Gyroscope, according to the Web site of Winthrop Management.
The property served as the original home of the United Nations before the world body moved to Manhattan
In 1951 property was sold to a series of military contractors, including defense giant Unysis.
After Lockheed sold the property in 2000, it was redeveloped as a mixed use complex that includes Cablevision’s public access studio, and the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Though hospitals are tax exempt, in lieu of property taxes North Shore University Hospital agreed in 2008 to pay the Village of Lake Success 85 percent of the village real property taxes it would be required to pay if it were not tax exempt.
