Thursday, October 1, 2026
With the construction of a new movie theater in Lynbrook and more transit-oriented housing coming to East Rockaway, both municipalities hope new development will jump-start their downtowns and help keep young people in town.
“Our plan is to be centralized, by having the anchor being the movie house,” said Lynbrook Mayor Bill Hendrick.
A focal area in Lynbrook is the Five Corners, and officials hope the new movie theater will attract more people — and new businesses — to the area. Also in the works is the proposed Courtyard Marriott hotel, which has yet to be approved. The plan is to build on the municipal lot on the corner of Langdon Place and Broadway, more than doubling the current parking available by setting the building atop a parking structure.
“The available land dictates what we can do,” Hendrick said. “We can’t redesign from brand new.”
The kind of retrofitting that the Marriott proposal calls for is in line with the trend of redevelopment across the country in suburban areas that need rejuvenation, but lack space. According to the book “Retrofitting Suburbia” by Ellen Dunham-Jones and June Williamson, two architecture and urban design professors at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the City College of New York, this trend is seen as necessary for the sustainability of suburbs in the future.
The book defines redevelopment as the replacement of existing structures and/or building on existing parking lots, generally with a compact, walkable, connected mix of uses and public spaces that supports less automobile-dependent and more socially engaged lifestyles. “By providing retail and office employees with housing, dining, and retail choices within walking distance of their jobs,” the book reads, “mixed use [development] can reduce automobile trips and parking spaces, spread peak traffic flow hours, improve the cost-effectiveness of mass transit and in some cases facilitate carpooling commute trips.”
Mixed-use zoning often takes the form of affordable housing built above retail space — but there are various iterations of it across Long Island.
Hendrick said that a prime spot for small, mixed-use apartment units in Lynbrook is the former Mangrove Feather factory on Broadway, across the street from the proposed Marriott, just north of the Long Island Rail Road tracks. The proximity to the train station and a busier downtown would make the location more pedestrian-friendly — which is often what businesses seek when scouting locations.
“It’s a matter of the right developer to want to do the job that is cost-effective for him,” Hendrick said, adding that there were at least three developers interested in the property. The village drafted a document a few years ago, he added, intended to steer downtown revitalization. “The plan is easy to write on paper, but harder to initiate,” Hendrick said.
East Rockaway Mayor Bruno Romano echoed this point, and said that village officials are hoping that the new Marina Pointe apartments, on Atlantic Avenue, will drive more foot traffic to the main streets. The 84-unit, transit-oriented development will be within walking distance of a yet-to-open Best Market (replacing the Pathmark on Atlantic Avenue), and will be the village’s area of focus for improving commerce — although Romano said that has been difficult.
“We’ve been meeting and brainstorming [with the Chamber of Commerce] on how we can help the businesses in the community … also complementary businesses, where perhaps a bakery can help a restaurant,” he said. “We encourage the businesses also to interact with each other and try and help each other out. There’s no reason why the Reel Restaurant has to go to another area to buy cakes or breads or anything they need.”
The tricky part for East Rockaway is that it isn’t near main roads like Sunrise Highway, and can’t capitalize on major traffic to and from New York City. The community’s secluded summer feel is what many people like about it, Romano said, but that makes it hard for businesses to see its main street as a 12-month operation, with many restaurants opting for seasonal hours.
“Business is tough,” he said. “Unless you have a very active main street where people would open up tomorrow — it’s not like that.” Romano added that he had hoped a developer would build a movie theater where a CVS Pharmacy now stands on Atlantic Avenue, which he believed would have provided a needed anchor for commerce.
The village board is always on the lookout for grant opportunities, Romano said, but was reluctant to apply for New York state’s $10 million Long Island Downtown Revitalization Initiative because it seemed like “a lot more than we could possibly handle.” Grant money from the state and federal government, he said, helps bring more growth to the area, but could require the village to do more than necessary all at once.
The Village of East Rockaway and Marina Pointe developer Beechwood Atlantic Avenue LLC will be recognized at this year’s Smart Growth award ceremony, hosted by Vision Long Island on June 10. Vision Long Island highlights development trends like mixed-use buildings, affordable housing, traffic calming and pedestrian safety measures and transportation enhancements.
East Rockaway resident Dan Caracciolo has taken it upon himself to gauge interest in redevelopment by putting together a survey, planning a new committee meeting and inviting residents and interested parties to discuss the topic. He said he thought that under the leadership of former Mayor Ed Sieban, the idea of rezoning the Ocean Avenue industrial area and Davison’s Boat Yard was ahead of its time.
“Despite the outcry then, specifically around the affordable housing, I thought the planning, the meetings, our government asking for public input was quite innovative,” Caracciolo said. He recently decided to start a dialogue about the future of the village. “Recently a lot of chatter in local Facebook groups got me thinking,” he said. “What can we do now?”
Comments from residents and business owners will be reported in a future issue of Herald. If you’d like to take part in Caracciolo’s survey, contact him at rikkisdad007@gmail.com.
