The prospect of using condemnation to acquire some Main Street properties sought by a developer proposing to build a mixed-use, five-story building has at least tentative support from a majority of the Riverhead Town Board, but the measure is unnecessary according to property owner Sheldon Gordon, who says he’s “99 percent sure” the sale is a done deal.
In an interview this afternoon, Gordon said the seller and buyer were in agreement on a purchase price and the issues holding up the final contract signing has been nothing more than “lawyers playing footsie with one another.”
“I have not changed the terms,” Gordon said, “with the exception of maybe 1,000 hours of lawyers’ nonsense and all of that is 99 percent resolved.”
Gordon, a principal in Riverhead Enterprises, which owns the properties in question, said the parties have not been negotiating for 19 months, as the developer’s consultant, Connie Lassandro, said in an interview Friday. The purchaser “backed off for a while” until a new source of state funding became available, he said. Negotiations, he said, were renewed in earnest just four or five weeks ago.
“We’re way past the 11th hour in terms of getting this done,” Gordon said. “If I were a betting man, I’d bet on it.”
Lassandro acknowledged that the agreed-upon price, which she would not disclose, has not changed since negotiations first began. But disagreement on all the other terms — things like financing contingencies, closing date deadlines and terms of extensions — has held up the deal.
“It has been a 19-month ordeal,” she said.
Supervisor Sean Walter said in an interview Friday he planned to ask the town board to authorize the use of eminent domain to take title to the former Sears building and three smaller buildings to its east.
“It’s a heavy-handed thing to do,” Walter said, and a tactic he previously opposed, but changed his mind “after five years of dealing with Shelly,” he said. “We have world-class developers willing to come here. It’s time to take action.”
Councilmen James Wooten and John Dunleavy both said Friday they agreed eminent domain is a necessary step at this point. Councilwoman Jodi Giglio and Councilman George Gabrielsen could not be reached for comment Friday. Both later expressed opposition to the idea of using eminent domain.
In a text message Saturday, Giglio said she said she doesn’t “like the idea that government can take your land and give it to a private developer” and would need “much more info” before she could support such a move.
“Sean is supporting taking someone’s land to give to someone else so they can make a profit,” Giglio wrote. “Eminent domain should be used for highways, power grids, and other such public benefits.”
Gabrielsen said in an interview today the supervisor’s proposal is “a knee-jerk reaction.” Riverhead doesn’t have the resources at its disposal to assume the costs and risks of the eminent domain process.
“We can’t afford it. There’s no way. It’s way over Riverhead’s financial head,” Gabrielsen said.
Anthony Coates, the Democratic candidate for supervisor, said today condemnation might be right in some situations, but not this one — not yet, anyway. He said the supervisor’s comments in the media were only giving the property owner to “come back at us with a good lawyer and cost the taxpayers a lot of money.”
Walter’s comments were an example of “naive negotiation and bad lawyering,” according to Coates. “You don’t fire the first salvo in the media.” Besides, the supervisor should not be “playing a centerpiece role in negotiating with one buyer,” he said.
“You can’t use condemnation to get your guy what he wants, especially for the sister of one of your campaign guys,” Coates said, referring to Lassandro’s brother, Tom, who has worked on Walter’s campaign and is also a town employee.
Walter said Coates, his former ally and adviser, “knows better than anyone” how he’s negotiated with Gordon over the past five years, “while the rest of the town has been expanding exponentially around him.”
Gordon said he was dismayed by town officials’ talk of condemnation but found Wooten’s remarks “hurtful.”
“His remark about me wanting another pound of flesh — he’s basically calling me a shylock,” Gordon said. “It smacks of anti-Semitism,” he said.
Gordon said he wants nothing more than to have revenue-producing properties in a thriving downtown.
“Ask some of my tenants how well I treat them — when they couldn’t pay their rent for months and I looked aside. Ask any of them if I’ve been a greedy landlord” as town officials have alleged.
“I’m not asking you to say that I’m a saint, but I’m certainly not a sinner,” Gordon said.
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