County to sell vacant motel property in Island Park at $2M loss

In the years after Hurricane Sandy, the Long Beach Motor Inn has stood dormant, but Nassau County officials have voted to sell the property for $1.15 million to a private developer seeking to build apartments there.

The County Legislature voted, 11-8, at its Feb. 23 meeting to move forward with the sale to Patricia Abramson, of Merrick, who wants to build 18 to 22 one- and two-bedroom apartments at the site, on Austin Boulevard in Island Park. County Executive Laura Curran must approve the project before it goes forward, which is likely because she has advocated for the property’s sale.

“The Long Beach Motor Inn is a seedy, run-down eyesore that is dragging down property values, while not contributing anything to the tax rolls or the community,” county spokesman Michael Fricchione said in a statement. “The proposed development will help Nassau County cope with its housing crisis, which is marked by a disturbing shortage of available rental units.”

Fricchione added that Abramson plans to spend millions of dollars to gut and renovate the structure to offer dozens of units to future Island Park residents. The plan would end nearly a decade of controversy over development of the former motel, which was once slated for 90 units of affordable housing.

The facility has a checkered past dating to 2011, when the motel was converted into a place to house sex offenders, which sparked a protest from the Island Park Civic Association. In 2012, the motel closed after Hurricane Sandy flooded the first floor. It has remained vacant ever since, but county officials entered a legal battle shortly after the storm to acquire the property through condemnation.

The county offered $750,000 to purchase it after Sandy, but the motel’s owners asked for $10 million. After several years of negotiations, the county purchased it in 2015 for roughly $3.6 million. Though the new developers offered to buy the property for $1.15 million — meaning a loss of more than $2 million for the county — Legislator Denise Ford, a Republican from Long Beach who represents Island Park and parts of Oceanside, said she was part of the majority who supported the sale.

“I’m in favor of what they want to develop there,” she told the Herald after the vote. “It’s something that will provide housing to the residents of Nassau County. It’s not going to be very dense development, and it’s actually going to fit in with the footprint that is there and fit in with the homes that are in that area.”

Though county officials purchased the building five years ago, the requests for proposals process has been arduous. Ford said the county received no responses to the first RFP, and after re-writing it, a few potential buyers did not work out after lengthy negotiations. There were talks of turning it into senior housing, but plans did not progress. Now rental apartments are planned at the site.

Site development has brought controversy, however, as some county officials have questioned why the Legislature would vote for a project that does not create many affordable units.

“It begs the question, what are we doing as a county?” Legislator Siela Bynoe, a Democrat from Westbury, said at the legislative session. “What is our public policy as it relates to affordable housing? We state that we understand that we’re losing young people and families and seniors in droves to states south of us because people can’t afford to be here. . . . But we would take a piece of land that we own, that we purchased at an amount of [$3.6] million, and utilize that same land to yield only four units of affordable housing?”

Bynoe referenced Nassau County settling a 14-year-old fair housing lawsuit with nonprofit housing developer MHANY Management. In the settlement, which was reached in March 2019, the county agreed to pay MHANY $5.4 million and set aside more money to help build mixed-income rental housing in neighborhoods with “high-performing” schools. MHANY filed the lawsuit in May 2005, claiming that the county was discriminating against minorities by not promoting housing for people with low and moderate incomes.

As part of the agreement, Nassau officials set aside a quarter of the county’s housing grants from the HOME Investment Partnerships program, totaling about $450,000 per year for at least three years. The funding was to be made available to developers seeking to build mixed-income rental housing in high-opportunity areas.

Bynoe argued that the MHANY settlement should have been considered when deciding what to build in Island Park, and that the Long Beach Motor Inn site was perfect for affordable housing. A motion to table the discussion and withhold decision for a later date was voted down, 11-8, before the project was approved.

Ford said the unit likely would not house luxury apartments, and that she was pleased to see a project coming closer to fruition. “This property has been off the tax rolls since 2012,” she said. “This is an opportunity to bring it back.”