Mapping a rebirth for downtown Smithtown

Revitalization committee, Planning chief call for new sewers, medians, apartments

By Joe Darrow

01/26/2007 | 01:39 PM
If you've avoided spending time in downtown Smithtown because of traffic congestion, the hazards of walking across Main Street, limited parking or just plain shortage of attractive locations, you may soon be reconsidering. If the improvements depicted by members of the Smithtown Downtown Revitalization Committee and town Planning Director Frank DeRubeis come to fruition, Smithtown will capture some of the small-scale urban life — as well as renewed business and affordable housing — that is invigorating area hotspots like Huntington.

At the Greater Smithtown Chamber of Commerce luncheon January 18 architect Mark Mancini, president of Mancini Architecture and Design LLP and a Chamber of Commerce member, presented renderings of a revitalized Main Street. Mancini, who lives with his wife and children near the Main Street corridor, spoke of his vested interest in improving downtown, and in particular making it more accessible to pedestrians and motorists alike.

Mancini said he began by candidly photographing downtown Smithtown, capturing the visible pollution. "You get used to this," he said to his audience of Smithtown business people, but a visitor to the area sees the harsher view of "a lot of telephone poles, power lines, broken sidewalks" among other things. He suggested burying the utility cables alongside the pipes when the sewer system is renovated.

As his rendering depicts, Mancini and the downtown committee also advocate a traffic island amidst busy, dangerous Main Street. Municipal signs guiding drivers to parking lots behind the shops would be erected. Planning Director Frank DeRubeis reassured a concerned audience member that parking space on the north side of Main Street would be maintained, saying there was already enough room on Route 25 between Maple Avenue and Route 111 to accommodate the median.

According to Mancini, an island offers pedestrians crossing the street "a refuge." "They don't have to wait for a chance to run," he explained. And the more pedestrians who feel comfortable walking the neighborhood, the more business downtown shops will receive.

Islands also extend safety to drivers. They help regulate traffic by dictating, through turn shoulders and island breaks, where left turns can be made, Mancini said. As people would be turning left out of a separate lane, the left-hand lane would be cleared of the stopped cars, obstructing traffic flow while waiting to turn, which produces much of the congestion downtown. Further, according to Mancini, reckless driving would be reduced, as now drivers hop between lanes and accelerate furiously to avoid getting trapped behind a vehicle waiting to turn.

Mancini warned that if change is not agreed upon and effected by local interests, the state would act without community oversight, since Route 25 is a state road. And, he added, the Smith Haven Mall is currently constructing an open-air shopping pavilion, "an outdoor main street, which is going to compete with this one."

"Smithtown needs to grow," Chamber President Mario Gino said, and "without sewers we're not going to go anywhere." According to Gino, also a member of the Suffolk County Legislature Advisory Panel on Downtown Revitalization, an expanded sewer system is necessary to accommodate the increased density involved in attracting more downtown businesses and adding apartments over stores. He voiced his hope that this increase in workforce housing would bring back residents forced out by high property taxes.

"We knew back in the 1970s that we needed to do sewers," DeRubeis said, but the Southwest Sewer District discredited Suffolk County sewer projects, and not until recently has support for sewer expansion reappeared "after 25 years of ignoring the issue."

According to DeRubeis, the recent transition of all the Kings Park Psychiatric Center land to the state Office of Parks has raised a possible obstacle to the renovation of the sewer system. Previously, when Smithtown was anticipating transfer of the developable portion of the property over to the Town's control, some of that land had been earmarked to house the expanded wastewater treatment facility. The matter is being re-examined and ultimate use of the land has not yet decided by state authorities.

Without sufficient sewage capacity, DeRubies said, downtown improvement will be stymied. For example, the ordinances allowing workforce housing downtown already exist, but "what is not in place is the infrastructure to support that" — without an increase in sewer capacity, the Health Department will not sanction more occupants in many downtown buildings. Further, DeRubeis said the town, so as to minimize its disturbance of downtown commerce during the sewer expansion project, would build the sewer pipes and utility lines under the proposed Main Street median during its construction.

Suffolk County Legislator John Kennedy (R-Nesconset) said the Legislature has agreed to provide $300,000 and has selected a contractor to perform an 11-month study examining the requirements of doubling Smithtown sewers' capacity. According to Kennedy, current capacity of the Smithtown sewer system stands at 600,000 gallons. While the district it serves is small geographically, many contracting large businesses and communities increase the demand. For example, Legislator Kennedy said, St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center sewage enters the Smithtown system at about six different points of contact. He said the goal to accommodate a rejuvenated downtown calls for a capacity of 1.2 to 1.4 million gallons.

Kennedy said the projection of costs includes expenditures on fixed items — particularly land to house the expanded sewage treatment facility, infrastructure and the capacity to pump water to both Smithtown and Kings Park, which will work on sewer expansion in conjunction with its own downtown revitalization effort. In both areas, the increased sewer coverage is necessary to generate the "ability to get second-story accessory apartments, or workforce housing."

Due to this goal, Kennedy suggested seeking funding through the county Economic Development and Workforce Housing capital program. He said he would work to convey the urgency of this project at the county level, and advocated that residents seek the aid of state government as well.

Kennedy urged the audience to vocalize their concerns to state Assemblyman Mike Fitzpatrick (R-St. James) and state Senator John Flanagan (R-East Northport) that the land necessary for expansion of the sewer facility — intended to come from psychiatric center land — would be unavailable due to the uncertainty surrounding control of this property. Kennedy said Smithtown's state representatives had assured him that the land in question would be available.

Planning Director DeRubeis also discussed the far-reaching impact of transportation on downtown revitalization.

Traffic flow on Route 347 offers greater difficulty for downtown Smithtown than that of Route 25, DeRubeis explained. According to the Planning chief, Route 347 was originally termed the Port Jefferson-Nesconset Bypass because it was intended to avoid traffic congestion in the circumvented commercial districts. But the commercial district has expanded apace. Now "the road is operating above its capacity" and traffic is spilling over onto nearby arteries, such as Main Street, an increased usage that will only be abated when Route 347 is improved, DeRubeis said.

"Pedestrian movement is the most critical aspect of downtowns," DeRubeis emphasized. Look at Port Jefferson and Huntington. "Those areas are friendly to walk around," he said. Smithtown needs to "end the conflict between pedestrians and cars." DeRubeis said the circulating system for local traffic behind stores on the north side of Main Street, from the Bank of Smithtown to Landing Avenue, would be extended to Bellemeade Avenue and eventually to River Road, so that "if you're going to circulate, you don't need to go on Main Street."

"There's no magic bullet to improving the downtown," DeRubeis. "This is not a single effort of one group or another." While DeRubeis said he and other downtown revitalization planners were going to take their ideas on a road show to local civic groups, the most change will be effected when Smithtown residents convey their desire for a renewed downtown to town and county authorities. "Political systems respond more to people like you than they do to me," DeRubeis said to the assembled businessmen and women.

Executive Director Barbara Franco announced the Chamber of Commerce's Fall in Love with Smithtown marketing and advertising campaign. Banners, which will decorate the lamp poles downtown, are planned on routes 111 and 25A and along Main Street from Terry Road to Brooksite Drive. A community kiosk providing information on the commercial district will be installed across from the chamber office in the Arcadia Shopping Center lot at Main Street and Landing Avenue. According to Franco, on one side there will be a map and directory to local businesses, and the opposite side will list community events in coordination with the Smithtown Library and Arts Council, to be updated quarterly. A third side of the kiosk will discuss the Fall in Love with Smithtown revitalization campaign, and the fourth will be available to businesses for advertising.

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