Mineola’s Board of Trustees heard a proposal for another new apartment building on Wednesday, Oct. 15.
The proposal, presented by 199 Mineola LLC developer Adam Mann, is for a 30-unit, four-story apartment building that will include a ground-floor retail space at 199 Jericho Turnpike, a historic building where the Bank of America previously operated. The board said they appreciated the apartment’s design, which honors the building’s past, but wanted to see fewer units in the building.
“I think the building looks very nice. It fits in with the character of that area,” said Deputy Mayor Janine Sartori. “Thirty apartments, to me, is a lot…We have about another two dozen going up down the street. We’re starting to be a little bit crowded there. I would prefer it to be less than 30.”
Sartori’s opinion was echoed by all other members of the board. Mann pushed back against decreasing the amount of units, but said he was open to speaking with the village to find a solution and land on a number agreeable to both parties.
Part of the board’s issue with the apartment hosting 30 units was that Mann was proposing 35 parking spaces, about 15 fewer than the village code dictates is necessary for a building with that unit number. Though Mann presented a traffic study that showed 35 spots would be sufficient, Pereira WHO IS THIS? FIRST REFERENCE? urged him to decrease the number of units to 24, which would satisfy the village’s parking code.
Mann is the same developer behind the approved luxury apartment, The Bridge on Mineola Boulevard, which expects to break ground at the start of next year. He proposed designating 15 units in this proposed Jericho Turnpike apartment as “affordable” units, meaning they’d be priced below market value, in order to locate all required affordable units across both of his buildings in one, which is permitted.
It was unclear whether Mann was legally required to designate 15 units as affordable, though he suggested he wanted to do so regardless of what the law required. Pereira suggested Mann could look deeper into what was required and, if he was not legally obligated to designate 15 as affordable, the village could strike a deal with him where he’d set fewer at an affordable level so he could still turn a similar profit with fewer units.
“We’d have to check to make sure that we’re in compliance…But we would hold you to 12 [or 10] affordable units instead of 15, if you had 24 units instead of 30,” Pereira said. “Then your parking deficiency goes away. The concerns board members have expressed about the number of units goes away. And, in terms of the bottom line, it would work for you, because now instead of 15 affordable units, you would have to do 10.”
The building’s market rate one-bedrooms are estimated to cost $3,000 a month, and two-bedrooms are expected to go for $4,000 a month, making it the first non-luxury building proposal the board has heard in months. The building’s current plans don’t call for any amenities.
Pereira said he appreciated that the non-luxury, more heavily affordable building would be marketing itself towards a different demographic than recently approved luxury apartments.
Mann received an approximately $1 million grant from New York Forward, a state program that aims to revitalize downtowns, which Mann said would largely be put toward keeping the historic facade of the building intact, a costly venture.
Pereira said he expects the board to vote on Mann’s proposal, along with Eden Blue’s 200-unit, five-story apartment building proposed for 100 Willis Ave. at the trustees’ Nov. 12 meeting. He said the board will use the next month to settle on an agreeable unit number with Mann, which would likely fall between 24 and 30.
Regarding the Eden Blue proposal, Pereira said the board continues to await the results of water and sewage studies and a finalized agreement between the developer and village on that building’s relationship with the neighboring MAA fields and other benefits promised to the village, a standard procedure when a developer builds within a municipality.
Mann’s apartment proposal included funding for streetscape improvements in the village as a benefit.
Mann said he expected the apartment’s construction to take roughly a year from its approval date, if he were to be granted permission to build.
The Nov. 12 meeting will be held in village hall at 6:30 p.m.
