By:Joseph Kellard
Main strip host to many renovations
If the town Zoning Board of Appeals grants a Utah-based company permission to build a self-storage facility on the property where South Beach Dance Club used to operate on Broadway in Island Park, development is expected to begin in the fall. The facility would join a list of development projects in Island Park and Oceanside, some of which have been completed, while others are in progress or scheduled to begin in coming weeks.
One recently completed project is the Full Gospel Church of Island Park on Austin Boulevard. Formerly tucked away behind the Sands shopping center in Oceanside, the new home of the congregation has a much larger and more visible facility a few blocks away without any traces of its car-dealership beginnings. Although services are now being held in the new church, its official opening is scheduled for sometime before summer's end.
"We'll be having our official opening for the community, which we're calling Dedication Day, in either late August or early September," Pastor Tom Grazioso said.
For nearly 30 years, Full Gospel conducted its services at its Mott Street location. It began in a garage in 1973 and 11 years later was converted into a church that had a 320-seat sanctuary within a 7,000-square-foot structure on a single acre of land.
Designed by Bolder Engineering of Valley Stream, the new church in Island Park has 450 seats, 15,500 square feet of space and is on two acres. It also features Christian Education facilities, a large fellowship hall for banquets, receptions and news meetings, church offices, a food pantry and a 147-space parking lot.
Ironically, the second church, like the original, was also developed from an old garage, one that once housed Chevrolet and Dodge dealerships but was vacant throughout the 1990s. The church's construction started last fall, after Full Gospel spent four years searching for a new location. The search was assumed by G & L Building Corp., an Oceanside-based contracting company whose president, Gary Lucas, owns the Sands shopping center.
"About four years ago, G & L offered to buy our church from us," Grazioso said. "Since it was next to the shopping center, it was ideal property for them to purchase and expand on. But at the time, we really had no place else to go."
In Oceanside, G & L found two potential locations, the property of the former Unique Racquetball club on Long Beach Road, now the site of Hollywood Video and Party City, and St. Andrew's Church on Anchor Avenue. "These locations weren't feasible for what the Full Gospel Church wanted," said Joseph Greco, vice president of G & L.
What was feasible was the long-vacant, spacious property in Island Park. G & L and Full Gospel worked out a deal whereby the contracting company would buy the property and donate it to the church. However, purchase was delayed because the property was tied up over legal issues, Greco said.
"G & L finally bought the property and donated it to us," Grazioso said, "and with the money from their purchase of our old property and money we had in our building fund, we were able to build the new church. And we were able to enter it debt free, which nowadays truly is a miracle," he added with a laugh.
Before demolishing the old church last week, G & L allowed people from the Restoration Assemblies of God to strip the building of materials such as chandeliers, doors and air-conditioning units, to be used in its own, newly-constructed church in Islip. "We recycled as much of the old church as we could," Grazioso said.
On its Mott Street property, G & L will expand the Sands shopping center by constructing two stores, Anne Taylor and Express. Construction was expected to start this week and be completed in three months, Greco said.
The work is part of G & L's ongoing reconstruction and expanding of the Sands. In March, a facelift began on the shopping center's facade, which included brick-facing the Stop & Shop supermarket and building an elaborate, stucco overhead along the storefronts. The project is expected to be completed in another month, Greco said.
Recently construction was completed to expand the Kids Gap, in the middle of the shopping center's parking lot, which will also house a Baby Gap. The Gap store, on the parking lot's north end, was also expanded to include a new store, Gap Body, which will supply men's and women's undergarments and sleepwear. Both stores are scheduled to open Sept. 21.
Other business development in the area is being performed along Long Beach Road in Island Park. A former nightclub there is being converted into Macken Mortuary, a funeral home that has operated out of Rockville Centre for more than 60 years.
The 5,000-square-foot Island Park building is expected to open this fall and feature four reposing rooms, a showroom and 42-space parking lot. The development is an expansion on the business that was begun in Brooklyn in 1909 by Joseph Macken, who moved operations to Rockville Centre in the 1930s.
Macken's two son's, Joseph Jr. and Thomas, inherited Macken Mortuary and retired in 1994, selling it to Joseph Noll, an employee since 1973, who has kept it an independent, family-owned business.
The site of the new funeral home once housed a topless nightclub that was shut down. The property was last used in November 1998, and Noll purchased it the following year. For two years he waited for the Town of Hempstead zoning board to grant him a building permit, which happened in May this year.
Noll chose the new location to better serve a large number of its clientele, residents of Island Park and Long Beach. Until last year, with the opening of Aliffi & Jordan on Long Beach Road, there were no funeral homes in Island Park. In Long Beach, however, the absence of funeral homes is because of a prohibition against them. Thus, funeral homes in Oceanside and Macken in Rockville Centre benefited.
"By opening a home here, it's easier for us to service the people in Island Park and Long Beach community, which has been very good to us," Noll said. "My wife, Jeanne, and I are very excited to be closer to these communities to provide the service to their families."
