Breslin Realty Dev. celebrates grand opening of newly constructed, 252,000 s/f Republic Plaza in Farmingdale

Wilbur Breslin, one the of the area s preeminent retail developers, recently announced the grand opening of Republic Plaza. The newly constructed 252,000 s/f shopping center is home to the largest Wal-Mart prototype on Long Island to date, as well as some of Long Island's most popular retail stores and restaurants. Breslin closed the $15 million deal to purchase the 25 acre former Polytechnic University campus in 2002, and began the five-year arduous process of obtaining the approvals required by the town of Babylon to construct the 157,000 s/f Wal-Mart store, three freestanding pad buildings to accommodate Bank of America, Houlihan's, Chili's and a fourth building leased to Chipotle, Panera Bread, Sleepy's and Game Stop. The original plans called for the Wal-Mart and an additional 130,000 s/f store. However, after two years of dealing with the town of Babylon, and officials of the adjacent Republic Airport, the original plans were scrapped. New plans were submitted to Babylon officials who were still ambivalent about approving another retail center on the Rte. 110 corridor. The town was hoping to attract more office and technology tenants to the site, but changed their position after reviewing a study commissioned by the developers which concluded that there was little, if any, interest in the site by office or technology tenants. As the clock kept ticking in this case, time ended up on the side of the developer. Originally, Breslin was negotiating to bring Stew Leonard's Supermarket to the site. However, the Conn.-based company backed out after obtaining an offer to purchase a competing parcel of land for $3 million less. With Stew Leonard's out of the picture, the developer was able to take advantage of better deals which presented themselves later on in the process. As the plan inched its way through the approval process, Breslin continued discussions with airport officials who were voicing new concerns about the traffic pattern entering and exiting the center from Rte. 110. Plans, once again, had to be re-engineered to accommodate their concerns. The developer's engineers were able to satisfy the airport's concerns by submitting a plan which provided for the airport's relocated entrance from Rte. 110 to Grumman Ln., the airport's new access road. However, airport officials then raised another objection. They claimed that in the event of another 9/11-type alert, the airport would be required to shut down and the shutdown would create a conflict with traffic entering and exiting the shopping center. No matter how many times the plans were re-engineered to address the concerns of airport officials, there was always a new issue. The only solution left appeared to be downsizing the project. However, rather than shrink the project and rely on access only from Rte. 110, an eventual deal was struck with the airport to swap land along Rte. 110 for property which abutted Grumman Ln. This solution not only accommodated the airport's concerns but also allowed the airport to develop additional land for two privately developed hotels, which have since been constructed along Grumman Ln. Ultimately, the land swap was a good thing for both parties. Unfortunately, it took an additional 24 months to complete at a cost of $110,000 per month. In the end, however, the center turned out to be the jewel of the corridor's retail developments, architecturally designed and landscaped like no other development in the market.