Riverhead Dodge plans move to Rt. 58, seeks permission to use new site while processing applications for new facility

Riverhead Dodge will be joining the other auto dealerships on Route 58.

The owners of the West Main Street dealership purchased the site formerly occupied by Out East Family Fun in October and plan to relocate their operations to the bustling commercial artery as soon as they can obtain all the required approvals and construct the new facility.

The whole process could take as much as two years, according to architect Jim DeLuca.

While the site plan and ancillary applications are being reviewed, Dodge dealership owners would like to move their sales operation to the new site, members of the Strollo family, which owns the dealership, told the Riverhead Planning Board on Thursday.

They will use the existing building on the site as a temporary sales office, attorney Kim Judd told the board. There will be no significant changes to the exterior of the property and the entryway into the site will be untouched, she said.

Riverhead Dodge needs approval of an “administrative site plan” in order to move forward with the plan for interim occupancy of the site. An administrative site plan review, though less onerous than a regular site plan review process, still requires referrals to various county agencies, including the department of public works and the planning commission. The town planning department has made those referrals and is waiting to hear back from county officials, Riverhead building and planning administrator Jeff Murphree told board members.

No one on the board voiced any objection to the idea of the site’s interim use pending approval of the full site plan. DeLuca has already begun seeking the required approvals for the final plan, Judd told the board.

Jane Strollo Millman and Anthony Strollo Jr., children of Riverhead Dodge founder Tony Strollo, attended the planning board meeting with Judd and DeLuca.
They said they’d like to occupy the Route 58 site as soon as possible.

“They want more space and more visibility,” DeLuca said in an interview after the meeting. The three-acre site on Route 58, purchased for $3.25 million in October, is twice the size of the company’s West Main Street location, which it has occupied for many years.

Once the all the approvals for the new facilities are in hand, which DeLuca estimated will take another eight months, the dealership will move its inventory back to the downtown site so the existing structures on the Route 58 site can be razed to make way for the new 26,000-square-foot building they plan to build. The new building will house a nine-car, 7,200-square-foot showroom, plus a service area, parts department and office space. DeLuca said construction of the new facilities will take eight months to a year.

The Strollos have not made a firm decision yet on what they will do with the West Main Street site, Millman said after the meeting. It may be used for storage indefinitely or it may eventually be sold, she said.