School District Puts Former Administration Building up for Lease

The Three Village Central School District has retained a commercial real estate firm to lease its former administration building on Nicolls Road, a move which could bring additional revenue to district coffers if a tenant is found.

The 10,000-square-foot building used to be home to the offices of the superintendent and other administrators, which along with the district's maintenance and operations department are now housed at the on Suffolk Avenue in Stony Brook.

"We moved out of there full time in the summer of 2009," said Jeff Carlson, assistant superintendent for business services. "But it's not like it's just sitting there unused. We've used it for records storage, test scoring, overflow for conference room space."

The school board's facilities committee interviewed three commercial real estate firms to handle the leasing, and eventually selected Holbrook-based Sperry Van Ness Commercial Real Estate Advisors, a national company with more than 100 other offices.

David Madigan, president of the Holbrook office, estimated the property could fetch $150,000 to $175,000 per year for the district.

He described the former administrative building as an unusual property with a traditional Colonial appearance consistent with many other structures in the Three Village area.

"It's got maximum privacy together with maximum visibility," he said.

Madigan has orchestrated a number of nearby real estate transactions within the last five years. He has brought tenants including Good Shepherd Hospice and Mid Suffolk Pediatrics to professional facilities in Port Jefferson Station and Mt. Sinai. In 2010, he facilitated the sale of 10 buildings totaling 40,000 square feet at the Port Jefferson Professional Center on Route 347, as well as a 9,800-square-foot medical condo in the Stony Brook Technology Park.

The former administration facility is zoned as B1 residential. According to the Brookhaven town code, a zoning classification of B1 residential limits building uses to the following:

• One-family dwellings excluding mobile homes;
• Churches, parish houses, convents/monasteries, and similar places of worship;
• Open farming as long as odor- or dust-producing materials are stored at least 150 feet away from a street line;
• Public, parochial, or private school facilities, excluding daycare facilities;
• Offices of a physician, architect, lawyer or other similar professional individual who resides on premises and whose use of the building for that professional would be considered incidental and occupy up to one-third of the first floor;
• Accessory uses including a private garage, housing models, greenhouses, detached storage sheds up to a height of 12 feet, and barns up to a height of 18 feet;
• Special permit uses include daycare centers; private community centers; nonprofit ambulance organizations; parks, playgrounds and other outdoor recreational uses; cemeteries; college/university facilities; museum use when accompanied by designation as a historic structure.

Carlson said the property is unlikely to see a store such as 7-11 move in, but if a potential tenant wanted to use the grounds for something other than what is included in its zoning classification, that tenant could apply to the town for a variance.

"That would be up to the tenant to do that," he said.

Carlson said a handful of organizations have expressed interested in the property, but declined to discuss which ones.

At least one local religious group, Chabad at Stony Brook, has said it would consider leasing the facility. That organization has received approval from the Town of Brookhaven to on the east side of Nicolls Road on a property bordering the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. However, Chabad co-director Rabbi Chaim Grossbaum said the organization is still in the fundraising process before it can break ground, and would consider the former administrative building as an interim home.

"As our services are expanding, there is more demand for what we offer," Grossbaum said. "We're down in Lake Grove, but much of our clientele is in the Stony Brook area, so that's really where we belong."