A hospital and medical school built in the heart of Melville’s commercial corridor could be a financial boon, but also a harbinger of less favorable developments and more competition for public services, residents of the hamlet and nearby communities told Newsday.<\/p>\n
NYU Langone Health will spend billions to build Long Island\u2019s first new hospital in nearly five decades on more than 45 acres at the Huntington Quadrangle, a block east of Route 110\u00a0in Melville.<\/p>\n
Having purchased 1 and 2 Huntington Quadrangle last month, the healthcare system plans to initially\u00a0demolish one of the buildings and replace it with\u00a0a 500-bed teaching hospital and\u00a0renovate\u00a0the other for offices.\u00a0The facility would\u00a0include the system\u2019s Long Island medical school,\u00a0relocated from Mineola, plus housing for students and staff, an emergency department and research laboratories.<\/p>\n
Lisa Bloomstein, of Dix Hills, said she supports the project\u00a0\u2014\u00a0at least the second large building proposal\u00a0pegged for a part of Melville with several commercial vacancies but easy access to Route\u00a0110 and the Long Island Expressway.<\/p>\n
“I think the project represents more than just a new hospital for us,”\u00a0Bloomstein told Newsday on Tuesday. “It\u2019s an investment in jobs, education, medical research and the long-term health of our community.”<\/p>\n
Bloomstein and other residents who have followed Melville’s redevelopment efforts and\u00a0spoke to Newsday,\u00a0said they are more supportive of NYU Langone\u2019s proposal than another that could rise a stone\u2019s throw away \u2014 Steel Equities\u2019 plan to build 400 housing units along Corporate Center Drive, which the Huntington Town Board approved on April 14.<\/p>\n
The mixed-use plan, dubbed Melville Crossing, marks the first development approved for the Melville Town Center Overlay District, which will allow for the construction of up to 1,500 housing units in the traditionally commercial area.<\/p>\n
Melville resident\u00a0Dorothea Fitzsimmons,\u00a0said she wants to learn more from both developers, and any others interested in revitalizing Melville, about their long-term plans for the area.<\/p>\n
“There\u2019s so many things happening at the same time,” said Fitzsimmons, 65. “I\u2019m still waiting to hear how all of this might impact our first responders, our aquifer, our traffic and our schools.”<\/p>\n
An attorney representing\u00a0Steel Equities could not be immediately reached for comment late Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The Melville Fire Department has not yet seen any plans for NYU Langone\u2019s proposal, Chief Donald Barclay told Newsday on Monday. He said the department would not comment on the proposal until plans for the facility are submitted to the town.<\/p>\n
South Huntington resident Cynthia Clark, who opposes the Melville Crossing development, said the hospital plan will have her support, provided the new building stays within the old one\u2019s footprint and does not rise above\u00a0its current four stories. The height for the proposed hospital remains undetermined, an NYU Langone official told Newsday.<\/p>\n
“What we don\u2019t want is something like \u2014 and it\u2019s hideous, talk about brutalist architecture \u2014 the federal court building along the Southern State Parkway, which you can see for miles,” Clark said. “It just ruins the Long Island landscape.”<\/p>\n
For Rosario Asta, whose Say Cheese Pizza Cafe opened last month in Melville, an influx of medical workers in the area “will be great for business,” he said.<\/p>\n
“As it is we\u2019ve been super busy with all the businesses around here right now during lunch time,” Asta, 50, of Dix Hills, added.<\/p>\n
Stacey I. Sikes, acting president and CEO of the Long Island Association, said the business group supports the hospital proposal for the “economic ripple effect,” to local businesses and across the Island, as well as potential\u00a0influx of jobs to\u00a0the area. NYU Langone officials estimated the Melville proposal will generate thousands of permanent jobs.<\/p>\n
The LIA, which also supports Melville Crossing, believes the healthcare network\u2019s plan “sends a message that Long Island is an attractive place to invest and grow and it will further establish our region as a center for innovation and advanced medicine,” Sikes said.<\/p>\n
She added Melville is an ideal area for the hospital and housing because “it straddles Nassau and Suffolk County.<\/p>\n
Nicholas Grasso covers breaking news for Newsday. A Long Island native, he previously worked at several community newspapers and lifestyle magazines based on the East End.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A hospital and medical school built in the heart of Melville’s commercial corridor could be a financial boon,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[114,163,1541,521,85,46,4254],"class_list":["post-473602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-business","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-suffolk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}