Another apartment building is looking to make Mineola its home, but it will likely need to change its plans if it wants a necessary vote of approval from the village board.
Eden Blue LLC presented the Mineola Board of Trustees with proposals for a six-story apartment building at 101 Willis Ave., where a few smaller medical practices currently reside.
The proposed 204-unit apartment building, which would reach 80 feet at its highest point, is directly behind the Mineola Athletic Association’s fields. The developer said they plan to incorporate the association into the building, offering the first floor to the village and MAA for equipment storage, meetings, office space, public bathrooms, a hall of fame for players and a potential set of stadium seating and concession stand.
But village officials expressed concerns regarding the building’s appearance.
“When I look at this building, it doesn’t look Mineola. It just looks very massive,” Deputy Mayor Janine Sartori said. “On the surface, it looks fabulous… I appreciate what it is in the sense of involving the community and the MAA fields, but I personally just think it’s too big.”
The apartment’s plans include 204 total apartment units, a mix of 40 studios, 150 one-bedrooms and 14 two-bedrooms.
Jack Martins, a former Mineola mayor and current state senator who is representing the developer, said the development would include an array of amenities, including a pool and fitness center.
There would also be 378 total parking spaces, 307 of which would be dedicated to residents and 71 of which would be made public. The team said there is also the potential for a publicly accessible rooftop brewery or restaurant.
This is the first time in months that trustees and Mayor Paul Pereira haven’t reacted with complete enthusiasm to a building or business proposal.
The board has approved roughly half a dozen businesses over the past five months and a six-story apartment building on the northwest corner of Main Street and Second Street in April.
Over the past few years, a handful of other apartment complexes have opened in the village, including One Third Avenue, The Allure, and Royal Blue, owned by Blue Communities, the same parent company as Eden Blue.
Pereira said this apartment is different not only because of its significant size but also because its placement on Willis Avenue behind the Mineola Athletic Association’s fields. makes its size stand out more than it would if it were up against taller buildings.
“Approving a large project against the train station or on Old Country Road is not the same as approving a large project on Willis Avenue,” Pereira said. “ The applicant is saying, ‘Right around the block we had this size building.’ Well, that’s around the block. That’s not here.”
“I think that we’re going to have to have a conversation with the developers on something that is more appropriate for that location. I think that the board is pretty unanimous in that belief,” he continued. “I think it has the potential to be a great, really very unique project in that it incorporates the MAA.”
The board could not vote on the apartment application after the Wednesday night presentation, as the developer still needed approval from the village zoning board. If it were to secure that approval, the board of trustees would be able to take a vote on the apartment at a later date, potentially Sept. 10, the date they voted to continue the building’s hearing to.
Pereira and the board strongly suggested the team scale down the size of the building before their next presentation, saying that they felt it was both too tall and too long for that area of the village, but they appreciated the inclusion of the MAA fields.
“I feel like I’m looking at a building that’s going up in the city. It’s just the amount of people that are going to be there…I don’t know. I’m not in love yet,” Sartori said. “I’m in love with the idea. I’m in love with something that’s mixed use and involves the community going in that location 100%. I just think it needs to be a smaller version of it.”
She and other trustees also requested the Eden Blue team come back to the board with more specific information on the amount of water and electricity the apartment would use and how much additional traffic it would create based on empirical data from the other recently opened apartments in the village.
The board also instructed the developer to carry out an additional traffic study at the corner of Willis Avenue and First Street, a notoriously difficult intersection, so the community would understand whether traffic would worsen there and whether a potential intervention, like a new traffic light, would be necessary.
Trustees suggested the team remove a proposal for MAA stadium seating near the apartment’s doors due to safety concerns. Since the developer proposed a parking lot between the apartment and the fields, the trustees said they were concerned about children running between the seats and the field while cars drove in and out of the lot.
The board also raised concerns about the MAA fields’ ability to continue operating while construction occurred, emphasizing that that was a priority. The developer’s team said the fields would remain operational.
Over a dozen members of the public attended and sat through the entirety of the nearly three-hour hearing, though only two spoke.
One asked a brief clarifying question about traffic and one, who identified himself as a member of the Police Activity League, spoke in support of the project, saying he thought the new storage and meeting space for the MAA and PAL, which would also get space in the new building, would benefit the village.
Before the Eden Blue team provided their extensive presentation to the board, Chiennien Chen and Jing Xie presented the board with plans to open a new music school in the village.
Chen, who would be the managing partner of the school, currently owns, operates and teaches at two music schools in Queens and Brooklyn. The school, located at 59 Mineola Blvd., would provide lessons to all, with a focus on school-aged children looking to hone their craft.
“The goal for the music school is to provide a high-quality music education to the locals,” Xie said. “The school is going to bring a lot of high-quality teachers from the city, from Juilliard, from Manhattan Music school, and have them teach the local kids here.”
The pair emphasized that it was difficult, time-consuming and cost-prohibitive for younger students to travel to the city for lessons or to observe professional performances, so they wanted to solve the problem by bringing both to the village.
Chen and Xie, who own the building, would convert it from its current office use to a 16-classroom music school with a 105-person recital hall for performances, which would take place roughly 20 nights a year, providing all students with a chance to perform twice, Chen said.
The board expressed concern regarding parking during the recitals and asked Chen if he would provide a valet service to families on those nights and park their cars in the nearby municipal parking lot, which he agreed to.
After the parking concerns were resolved, the board expressed enthusiasm for the school, emphasizing the importance the Mineola School District places on music education.
“Mineola is absolutely a school district that prides itself on its music and fine arts. Our marching band has won four of the last five state championships,” Pereira said. “The bands, from jazz band to ensembles to strings to orchestra, are really top notch, continuously getting golds at NYSMA. You picked the right community.”
The board unanimously granted the pair approval to open the music school.
