53.0°,
Mostly Cloudy Avalon addition under way
New complex is expected to open in 2017
With Rockville Racquet torn down, AvalonBay has officially begun construction of its Phase II development.
The second phase of AvalonBay’s Rockville Centre apartment complex will add 165 units on the former Rockville Racquet property on N. Centre Avenue, which is directly across the street from Avalon’s Phase I development on Banks Avenue.
The project is part of a larger expansion that the company, like many other developers, is making across Long Island. “The demand [for rental housing] has been pent up for such a long time, you can keep building and never really catch up,” said Chris Capece, AvalonBay’s senior development director.
Capece said that the developer sees Phase II as a way to not only expand its offerings, but to improve them as well. “We didn’t want to just do the same thing we did [in Phase I],” he said.
Phase II will be smaller than the original development, which has 349 units, but also taller — four stories of apartments atop a parking garage that will be partially below-ground.
The expansion will also offer more kinds of apartments than the original complex. Phase I is all one- and two-bedroom units, but Phase II will also offer studio apartments and three-bedroom townhouses. Capece said that 32 percent of the new development will be studios, and there will be four townhouses, which will be geared more toward empty-nesters than young professionals.
“I think the apartment offering is going to be eye-opening for people,” Capece said, adding that he expected the studios to go fastest, since they are hard to find on Long Island.
But all of the apartments are going fast, he added. Though no buildings are up yet, Capece said that the waiting list is already quite long. Some of the names, he said, are people who are now living at Phase I and who are looking to upgrade to larger apartments.
“We have much more demand than we have units,” he said.
The units at Phase II will also offer higher-quality finishes and appliances, which Capece called Signature-Level Finishes. He said they would be the best quality residents could get in rental apartments on Long Island — stainless steel appliances, quartz countertops and more.
