A proposal to expand a luxury hotel in Southampton Village has won preliminary approval for $1.64 million in tax breaks.

The Suffolk County Industrial Development Agency gave an early go-ahead to the tax breaks for the proposed 40-room hotel on Hill Street. The project, which will have eight units of workforce housing, is next to the Southampton Inn, a 90-room hotel. The owners are the same.

Alek Lewis reports in NEWSDAY that the average nightly rate at the new hotel, which will feature a heated pool, is expected to peak at around $800 in July and August, according to a market analysis prepared by the property's owner. An office building on the property will be converted into eight one-bedroom workforce apartments. Another office building will be refurbished.

The $29 million project is expected to generate a “net public benefit” of $2.5 million over 15 years, said Kevin Gremse, of Grow America, a consulting firm that works for the IDA. Gremse cited a likely revenue boost from Suffolk County's 5.5% hotel occupancy tax.

"This is a shot in the arm for the village and the community, and the people who choose to live there on a year-round basis. They need it,” said Dede Gotthelf, owner of the Southampton Inn and managing partner of 71 Hill LLC, which owns the property, during a recent presentation to the IDA.

But the proposal has drawn some criticism from public officials. An IDA member who opposed the relief said locals will likely be priced out of the hotel. A Southampton Village trustee said the project should include more workforce apartments.

Josh Slaughter cast the lone vote against the preliminary tax breaks during the IDA's meeting on Jan. 29. The owner could hike room rates and not need the public assistance, Slaughter said at that meeting.

The Suffolk County IDA has scheduled a Feb. 20 hearing on the tax relief. A final vote is expected on Feb. 26.

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Walmart is planning to convert its Riverhead store into a supercenter, the national retailer’s one-stop shopping destination, combining a full-service supermarket offering groceries, bakery, deli, meats and produce with a discount department store. Denise Civiletti reports in Riverheadlocal.com that Walmart representatives met yesterday with Riverhead Planning Department staff to discuss the company’s plans during a pre-submission conference at Riverhead Town Hall.

The footprint of the existing store, currently about 167,000 square feet including the outdoor garden center, would be expanded to about 180,000 square feet under the current plans, according to engineer Alek Kociski of Bohler Engineering.

The plan is to build an addition in the area presently occupied by the outdoor garden center and convert the tire center, which is not active, into retail space. The entire interior of the store will be redesigned to accommodate the new supermarket’s offerings.

The expansion will require the purchase of development rights to allow additional floor area in the shopping center, Riverhead Senior Planner Greg Bergman told the Walmart representatives. The developer in 2010 purchased 41 development rights to build the original center, to develop the Walmart store and the other buildings on the site.

The expansion plan will require no variances, Walmart attorney Brian Kennedy said.

Suffolk County DPW may ask for a traffic study, Bergman said.

Since the supercenter will have a deli and a bakery, grease traps are needed, so that requires health department approval, Senior Planner Matt Charters said.

Jason Klipa, Walmart’s director of public affairs for New York said he couldn’t estimate when the company will file its application for an amended site plan approval, but it will begin working on preparing the necessary documents. The “next closest thing” to the Riverhead supercenter would be the Yaphank Walmart, which opened about six or seven years

In a major boost to its ongoing push for a sewer, Southampton Village announced its intention to purchase the Windmill Lane property where the Express News Group office is located as part of a plan to build a wastewater treatment facility. Once acquired using money from the Southampton Town Community Preservation Fund, the Express News Group building — located at 135 Windmill Lane — would be demolished in order to turn the site into a new dog park. Then, the treatment facility would be built behind the Southampton Village Volunteer Ambulance’s building, while leaching fields will be built at the dog park’s current location at 205 Windmill Lane.

Dan Stark reports on 27east.com that The Express News Group, which publishes The Southampton Press, does not own 135 Windmill Lane but is the sole tenant of the building.

The Village of Southampton is using money from the Community Preservation Fund to acquire the property, though the village would be responsible for paying for the building’s demolition, according to Mayor Bill Manger.

The plan will be discussed at the Village Board’s meeting this coming Thursday, February 12, at the Southampton Cultural Center at 6 p.m., which will feature members of the village’s sewer district task force and an engineer from D&B Engineers & Architects. Suffolk County Legislator Ann Welker will also be in attendance, as Manger said that the village is working with Suffolk County to secure funding to build the plant.

Installing a sewer has been a longtime goal for Southampton Village.

Building the facility is a key part of the sewer plan, as it would create opportunities to build new medical offices and restaurants, two “wet uses” currently barred by the Suffolk County Board of Health without a sewer system. It would also allow for apartments located on the second story of Main Street buildings to be used as such, which has also been barred, and prevent the flow of nitrogen and other harmful elements into groundwater and bodies of water.

“It means that the entire central business district of the village will eventually be hooked up to a treatment plant, thereby negating the need for antiquated septic tanks that are basically just polluting the groundwater and bodies of water like Lake Agawam,” Mayor Manger said.

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Things have seemed a bit quiet lately at the East End Food Hub site at the gateway to Riverhead, but that’s about to change.

Beth Young reports in EAST END BEACON that the non-profit East End Food received a temporary Certificate of Occupancy from the Riverhead Town Building Department in late January, according to Interim Executive Director Kayla Barthelme who said they’re planning to begin pop-up programming in the space next month.

The non-profit will be installing its commercial kitchen equipment this summer, she said, and will be putting in landscaping to enable it to receive its final Certificate of Occupancy this spring.

East End Food, founded in 2010 as the Amagansett Food Institute, is on a mission to connect farmers, food producers, consumers and institutions that have food service programs, to ensure that food grown on the east end isn’t wasted.

The non-profit, which for years had operated out of the kitchen at Stony Brook Southampton College, has been working on Phase 1 of an ambitious plan to renovate the former Homeside Florist at the corner of Route 25 and Route 105 in Riverhead.

The building will be used as a food processing site for fresh produce grown on the twin forks, and for an indoor sales space showcasing foods made by local producers.

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The Town of Southampton Youth Bureau will host an Open Mic Night for local youth on Friday, February 27, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Hampton Coffee Company’s newest location, 31 Shinnecock Road in Hampton Bays.

This free event is open to students in grades five through 12 and is...

The Town of Brookhaven joined Southampton and Riverhead town governments in a lawsuit filed on Friday in Albany that claims New York State has handcuffed local towns’ ability to choose where dispensaries are placed and illegally limited their “home rule” rights to oversight of basic commercial development requirements. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that the lawsuit asks a state court to nullify the component of the state’s Cannabis Law that limits local governments to only very narrow power to regulate cannabis dispensaries as far as their hours of operation, parking and traffic flow arrangements and nuisances like noise or smell.

Southampton, Riverhead, and Brookhaven Towns say in their lawsuit that when their respective legislative bodies chose not to “opt out” of allowing retail cannabis sales — as all counties, towns and villages were given the chance to do prior to December 31, 2021 — they did so on the basis of assurances from state officials that they would be allowed to determine where within their boundaries the shops would be allowed.

But the suing towns say that in September 2023, months or years after the three towns had adopted their own new regulations that allowed dispensaries to operate under a set of standard requirements similar to how other commercial businesses are regulated, the state adopted new guidelines that, if interpreted literally, greatly limit the towns’ authority to constrain cannabis stores.

Since that time, the state Office of Cannabis Management has issued several “advisory opinions” regarding regulations adopted by the towns, saying that the towns’ respective cannabis codes were “unreasonable and impracticable” and had limited cannabis business in ways it did not have the authority to under the superseding state law.

While the advisory opinions issued by the Cannabis Control Board do not carry actual legal authority, they have been instrumental in at least three court rulings in the last year that struck down local constraints in Southampton and Riverhead.

“I think I can speak for all of the towns involved in that we are forced to take this action to protect the towns’ Home Rule authority and our ability to control the regulation of land use within our respective towns,” Southampton Town Attorney James Burke said on Friday.

Critics from within the cannabis industry have said that the state’s claim to stringent limits on local authority will discourage other towns from opting into allowing cannabis sales in the future, and will further hamstring the already slow growth of the industry on Long Island.

There are more than 580 state-licensed dispensaries open statewide, but fewer than a dozen on Long Island — not counting the 10 on the Shinnecock Nation territory in Southampton, which are not state regulated.

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Icy conditions and blowing snow continued to make travel difficult Sunday morning, after a Saturday night that saw dozens of vehicles disabled across town due to drifting snow, Riverhead Highway Superintendent Mike Zaleski said. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that snow accumulations since Saturday morning were in the 2-to-4-inch range, but sustained winds of 25 to 35 mph, with gusts up to 50 mph caused drifts of 7 to 10 feet in some areas, Zaleski said yesterday. Reeves Avenue and the eastern portion of Peconic Bay Boulevard had the worst drifting, and there was significant drifting on Sound Avenue as well, he said.

Riverhead Town Police Chief Ed Frost said, “Several roadways needed to be shut down due to wind-driven snow drifts, which can cover a roadway very quickly.” The blowing snow caused “very tough conditions,” he said.

“This one was a crippling storm,” Zaleski said. “The winds killed us.”

“There were lots of vehicles on the roads, lots of vehicles getting stuck all throughout the night,” Zaleski said. That hampered highway department operations as