Court hearing for Temple Israel site on Aug. 9

Temple Israel’s long-delayed plan to sell a portion of its property to the Peninsula Public Library could be reaching its conclusion, as the Lawrence synagogue has a Nassau Court Supreme Court hearing on its subdivision application scheduled for Tuesday.

“We have excess space, and this space should be used to benefit the community,” said James Rotenberg, Temple Israel’s president.

Although the Reform temple has seen a slight uptick in membership in the past two years, long-term demographic trends predict a decline, since the surrounding Jewish community is mostly Orthodox. Occupying a sizable property on Central Avenue, between Winchester Place and Fulton Street, Temple Israel’s first likely buyer was the JCC of the Five Towns, which sought to build a community center on the front lawn, with parking on the site of the nearby Fulton Street home belonging to the temple.

“The village of Lawrence was quite resistant to this,” Rotenberg said. “The JCC needed variances, and they did not wish to fight.” Soon afterward, the temple approached the library to see if it was interested in acquiring the lawn. Last December, three months after Temple Israel and the library signed a letter of intent regarding the transaction, the temple submitted a subdivision plan to the Village of Lawrence.

The library hopes to build a three-story, 30,000-square-foot building on the site, which is just over half an acre and has been appraised at more than $2.5 million. A new library would replace the current 50-year-old, 13,000-square-foot facility at 280 Central Ave. in Lawrence. The Fulton Street house would be demolished, and the building would have 60 parking spaces. The present facility has 23.