Family-owned supermarket chain, King Kullen, signed a long-term lease in late September to open a store in the Barnum Isle section of Island Park. The proposed 67,500-square-foot retail center, which includes King Kullen and several smaller stores, would replace an auto body shop, a warehouse, a junkyard and an empty lot bordered by Beach Avenue and Waterfront Boulevard.
John Vitale, an Island Park resident who owns the six-acre site, said the shopping center will have a nautical New England village type of feel in a "park-like" setting. He said he hopes the project is up and running in two years.
In 2004, the Town of Hempstead Zoning Board of Appeals gave Vitale the green light to construct an amusement park on the site, despite complaints from residents of the Yacht Club, a nearby 128-unit condominium complex.
Vitale held off on the amusement park project because he said he wanted to find something that would be a better fit in the community. While the grocery store has more broad-based community support, members of the Yacht Club board of directors said they have reservations about traffic and noise in the area, which is currently zoned for industrial and commercial use, and will oppose the project.
The Island Park Chamber of Commerce supports the project, which it said will bring more shoppers, more jobs, and more cash into the community.
Camp DeBaun closes its doors
After serving the Oceanside community for 59 years, the owners and operators of Camp DeBaun, the DeBaun family, announced a June closing in a letter sent out in January.
The decision to close the camp, which served 700 to 800 children annually, and nursery school was made mutually among the members of the DeBaun family during the holiday season of 2007. The announcement left many residents scrambling for places to send their children during the summer months, and many more mourning the loss of an Oceanside staple.
The family decided to sell the seven-acre property, which featured two large pools, a lake for boating, cabins, arts and crafts buildings, a roller rink, a climbing wall, and an indoor-outdoor sports arena.
In a February interview with the Herald, the DeBauns said developers have been approaching them for more than 40 years and they would consider selling to a housing developer.
The county actively pursued the property, with the notion of preserving it and incorporating it in the county's open space programs, however interest waned because the listing price for the property was out of the county's budget. At the end of 2008, the property remains closed, with no new owner in sight.
Periwinkle's goes Italian
The building that formerly housed the restaurant "Dr. Periwinkles," located at the corner of Long Beach Road and Homecrest Court in Oceanside, was bought by Ben Braunstein, the president of Realty Resource Capital Corp. in Hicksville, in the summer of 2007.
In decades past, the property was home to several other bar-restaurants, including Charlottes, Pigeons, Faces and Shenanigans.
In January 2008, the Town of Hempstead approved permits to reconstruct the building. Since then, Braunstein and his people have been working to renovate the building and find tenants to rent the space.
Braunstein has so far rented about 70 percent of the total retail space to Jerry Santangelo, who plans on opening up an Italian restaurant called Mio Posto. Residents can look forward to enjoying lasagna and manicotti sometime in late January or early February.
