National music store eyeing former Ninow’s site at 30 West Main, as owner sets sights on Allied Optical building

A national music store is negotiating a lease with the owner of 30 West Main for the first-floor retail space recently vacated by Ninow’s Music, building owner Georgia Malone said yesterday.

“The new tenant would be the first national retail tenant downtown,” Malone told the Riverhead Industrial Development Agency board of directors yesterday. Malone was speaking during a public hearing on an application for benefits she’s made in connection with her intended purchase of the adjacent building at 20 West Main St.

“I’m hoping we get the signed agreement back from them any day,” she said.

In an interview afterward, Malone declined to name the music store she’s been negotiating with, but said the company is interested in “trying out” the Riverhead market. The former Ninow’s space, at 1,000 square feet, is small for a national music chain, she acknowledged. However, this would be “a kind of pop-up space for them,” she said.

That may be a novel concept for a Main Street tenant, but 30 West Main — with its flexible-size furnished spaces, shared common areas, and all utilities, including wifi, provided — is a study in novel concepts for the East End commercial real estate market.

Malone, who did a major renovation of the 30 West Main building — work, she said, would not have been possible without IDA benefits including sales, and mortgage tax exemption and partial real property tax abatements — would like to do the same for the building next door.

Plans to gut, renovate Allied Optical building

The 5,600-square-foot, three-story building at 20 West Main Street, separated from her current holding by an alleyway, has been owned for 40 years by the family that operates Allied Optical. With the current proprietor, Jerry Steiner, son of Allied Optical’s founder Sol Steiner, looking to retire, the building has been on the market for some time. Malone said when she heard about a possible sale to a purchaser she believed did not have the resources to renovate and operate the building, she “had nightmares about a boarded-up building next door.”

Malone told IDA board members she will pay the seller, who has agreed to hold a $300,000 mortgage, cash for the remainder of the approximately $600,000 purchase price. She is seeking the same IDA benefits granted in connection with 30 West Main, she said, including real a property tax abatement of about $4,000 per year for 10 years. The IDA assistance was “crucial” to her ability to complete the renovation, Malone said. Estimated renovation costs for 20 West Main are $253,800, she said.

The best location downtown
The Allied Optical building, which Malone called “the best location in downtown Riverhead,” has not been well-maintained, Malone said, and is in need of a top-to-bottom renovation. It needs both structural and cosmetic interior work and would get a new facade, she said.

“It’s what you see when you’re coming into downtown Riverhead from the South Fork,” Malone, who lives in Westhampton Beach, said. Currently, the first thing that hits visitors are “really weird posters in the window,” she said.

“It should be a very attractive building. I’m looking to make it gorgeous, as good looking as 30 West Main. It would create a commercial hub,” Malone said.

Mixed-use plan still in development
Plans for the building are not yet fully formed, she said, but she’s thinking doctors offices on the first floor, other offices on the second and residential units on the third floor.

The third floor, once occupied by a dance studio, is a wide-open, loft-like space that would be an “amazing place to live,” Malone said. She is considering some kind of flexible living space uses for the third story, she said: small spaces with built-in furniture.

Malone said she’d like to add a staircase or an elevator in the back of the building. Currently the second and third stories of the building are accessed by way of an entrance and staircase shared with the building at 12 West Main Street.

IDA chairman Tom Cruso questioned Malone on whether she has the financial wherewithal to complete the renovation of 20 West Main.

“Do you think what you have in your bank account is enough to get this up to speed, get them making income and also carry the charges as you go?” Cruso asked.

Malone said she did. She also said her partner in 30 West Main is not involved in the 20 West Main project.

She said she plans to renovate the ground floor space first and get that rented before turning her attention to the upper stories, which, she said have been vacant for at least a decade.

The 20 West Main Street site was the home of the Suffolk County Courthouse from 1729 to 1855.