Authored by: Sean Stark
December 8th, 2007 

John Steffans @ The News Review reported this week that more snags continue to tear into the progress of major revitalization in downtown Riverhead. Riverhead Enterprises (Sheldon Gordon) and Apollo Real Estate Advisors (Richard Mack), Deadlines have loomed before. Click here for the article.

The interesting part of this story to me is how Supervisor Phil Cardinale and the newly elected members of the town council will proceed and intervene. Let’s hope that, for the health of Historic DowntownRiverhead, the Supervisor and Board make decisions based on the growth and revitalization of Downtown.

In the Letter To the Editor section of the aforementioned paper, Marty Stromsten writes…
“It is time for the Town of Riverhead to take back the Suffolk Theatre and revisit the original plan for a cultural arts center that was approved by the Town Board a number of years ago. Something needs to be done to stop the exiting of so many small businesses in the village. Taking the Suffolk Theatre back would be a small price to pay for bring Riverhead back to life.”

When referring to the reverter clause in the agreement that the town has with the owner of The Suffolk Theatre, the author’s impatience and frustration derives from the lack of visible improvements in the downtown area of East Main Street inRiverhead. In my opinion, it would be a mistake for the town to act on this reverter clause. That action will only move to dissuade potential commercial investors from coming to Riverhead.

DECISIONS are going to have BE IMPLEMENTED in order to up the pace in this race to save Downtown Riverhead. The longer that the semi-abandoned buildings stand, and crime continues in the area of East Main St., the more obvious the battle to investors and potential homeowners to invest in RIVERHEAD.