The developer who has pitched creating a new “Main Street” as part of an expanded downtown Hampton Bays presented his well-traveled vision to residents of the hamlet in a newly welcoming atmosphere last week — extolling the virtues of creating broader sidewalks, taller buildings and dozens of apartments that he says would breathe new life into the hamlet’s flagging downtown area.
More than 100 residents packed into the Hampton Bays Public Library on Wednesday, August 14, for only the third-ever meeting of the Hampton Bays Alliance, a new community group that was formed by a group of residents who say that leaders of the long-established Hampton Bays Civic Association has stifled discussion about any potential new development in the downtown.
At the alliance meeting, emceed by the group’s co-founder, John Leonard, Alfred Caiola walked residents through the proposal he has been shopping since 2021 for a new “three-dimensional” downtown, showing a concept of three new streets to the north of Montauk Highway, the hamlet’s current de facto Main Street, that would have a mix of two- and three-story buildings with retail stores on the ground floors and offices and apartments above, and create new direct connections between Good Ground Park and the business district.
The plans would make Hampton Bays the kind of “high-quality place,” they said, that would attract residents to the downtown who currently are going to neighboring towns in search of the sort of thriving, walkable business district with cafes and shops that he thinks Hampton Bays could support and enjoy.
“I’ve always felt Hampton Bays, while probably the most beautiful waterfront community … just never had the downtown,” said the developer, who has purchased more than a dozen properties between Montauk Highway and the park with the redevelopment in mind. “I love it here, but if you want to have certain things, you have to go elsewhere to stroll and shop, because that is just not how Hampton Bays is set up.”
Caiola’s proposal builds directly off the redevelopment plans first conceptualized by designers working for Southampton Town, as it sought a way to revitalize the downtown. That plan was derailed by a lawsuit that challenged how the town had approached proposed rezoning, and is now crawling forward in a greatly pared-down version through the Hampton Bays Pattern Book, a more conceptual planning document the town will hold its latest hearing on next week.
The creation of Good Ground Park was the initial phase of the town’s effort, intended to provide a recreational and cultural draw to seed a bustling downtown that it envisioned one day growing to the park’s edges.The plans would make Hampton Bays the kind of “high-quality place,” they said, that would attract residents to the downtown who currently are going to neighboring towns in search of the sort of thriving, walkable business district with cafes and shops that he thinks Hampton Bays could support and enjoy.
“I’ve always felt Hampton Bays, while probably the most beautiful waterfront community … just never had the downtown,” said the developer, who has purchased more than a dozen properties between Montauk Highway and the park with the redevelopment in mind. “I love it here, but if you want to have certain things, you have to go elsewhere to stroll and shop, because that is just not how Hampton Bays is set up.”
Caiola’s proposal builds directly off the redevelopment plans first conceptualized by designers working for Southampton Town, as it sought a way to revitalize the downtown. That plan was derailed by a lawsuit that challenged how the town had approached proposed rezoning, and is now crawling forward in a greatly pared-down version through the Hampton Bays Pattern Book, a more conceptual planning document the town will hold its latest hearing on next week.
The creation of Good Ground Park was the initial phase of the town’s effort, intended to provide a recreational and cultural draw to seed a bustling downtown that it envisioned one day growing to the park’s edges.
The park as it is now is isolated with no direct connection to the downtown, Caiola and the architects of his plans say, leaving it empty most of the time and essentially inaccessible except by car. The designs he and the planners he has hired have devised show — much like the early versions of the plans crafted by the town’s consultants — the new development facing onto the park, with restaurants overlooking it.
“By having activity that comes to the edge of the park, it’s what we call embracing the park,” architect Steve Auterman of Urban Design Associates, the firm hired by Caiola to design the expanded business district, said. “You don’t want it to be something that is hidden away. It should be a place that you can walk to from other destinations, rather than only being able to drive down Squiretown Road.”
By creating the new area of the business district, the developer’s plans would allow Hampton Bays to break out of the constraints of having Montauk Highway and its existing commercial buildings as the heart of the downtown imposes, Auterman said. But there is a critical mass that is needed to make it work right out of the gate.
The new area would have room for wider sidewalks that make walking between storefronts more inviting to pedestrians and create a deeper commercial area that could support a broad enough cross section of business to attract and hold visitors in the downtown.
“We’re talking about a downtown that has three dimensions, not two,” Auterman said. “Currently, all the retail activity is up and down Montauk Highway. It’s a line — you have to drive from one to the next, you have to park multiple times. Hampton Bays is at the point … you can create some width. Every community has done this when it gets to that point of maturity.”
And having apartments interspersed with the commercial uses in the downtown area would seed the area with hustle and bustle. Autermanpointed to other village and hamlet centers that developed in the more traditional pattern, with residential neighborhoods fringing the downtown,allowing more residents to walk there, which presents a more welcoming feel even to those who are driving in.
Caiola spitballed that about 140 apartments could be created in the fl oors above the stores of the fully built new commercial area — creatingaff ordably priced living options for young professionals and a diverse cross-section of the community.
Some in the audience questioned the increased “density” of introducing so many residences in the downtown. Caiola and Auterman said that in acommunity of 14,000 year-round residents and 10 times as many in the summer, the density concerns were unwarranted in the face of the benefi tsit would have to the overall community.
“It’s what creates life in the downtown,” Caiola said of mixing housing into the new development center. “We deserve it. For having one of the topthree populated hamlets, to not have a thriving downtown is bizarre to me.”
One of the more debated components of Caiola’s vision has been the proposal for buildings up to three stories in height. Auterman said the widersidewalks would not make such buildings look or feel looming and the variations in buildings would break up the roofl ine of the new development,giving the entire downtown a more “authentic” appearance, as though it had developed over many years.
Some in the audience at the meeting applauded the approach — others were staunchly against buildings more than two stories tall.
“We all love Sag Harbor, we all love East Hampton, we all love Greenport — they all have three-story buildings,” said Susan von Freddi, a realestate agent and president of the Hampton Bays Beautifi cation Association, who said that there is high demand for commercial space in HamptonBays. “We need that inventory.”
Caiola said that his plans have focused, fi rst and foremost, on preserving the “charm” of the traditional downtown hamlet centers on the SouthFork and that folding in three-story structures would not threaten that. “I want it to feel right, be safe and have lots to do,” he said.
The architects said that providing adequate parking in the redeveloped downtown would be a challenge in need of creative solutions — includingthe town having to purchase land for new municipal parking lots and likely the creation of underground parking beneath the new buildings.
Caiola freely admitted that even in the most optimistic sense, his vision is years away — since it would require the creation of a new sewagetreatment plant for the downtown and extensive zone changes by Southampton Town.
Councilman Tommy John Schiavoni, who attended the Alliance meeting, said that the town is working on the sewage treatment component and iscontemplating a site near a town Highway Department property in Red Creek. But it still has to identify and purchase property and then developplans for a sewer system — a years-long process in itself.
Leonard said that the Alliance was not staking a position on any of the specifi cs in Caiola’s vision, only that it wants to see the downtownrevitalization eff ort move forward as quickly as possible. “We take the fundamental position that we need to a see a revitalization of Hampton Baysin our lifetime,” he said. “We felt like the conversation was so taken over by one side of the debate that people didn’t get the opportunity to hearthe clearing house of ideas.”
Many in the audience were clearly in favor of Caiola’s aggressive plans to inject new vitality into the downtown.
Christine Taylor, president of the Hampton Bays Chamber of Commerce and a co-founder of the Alliance, has been a champion of the broadredevelopment proposals for years and said an aggressive approach is needed to force a new format into the downtown.
“Those businesses on Main Street really need people to come to them — they’re struggling,” she said. “You may go to the hardware store, orFandango, or the antiques store, but the problem is you go to that place then you get in your car and leave.
“I would love to be able to park my car somewhere and take my daughter to lunch, go to a couple shops and put my money back into HamptonBays, rather than going to Westhampton. Not that it’s not good to support other communities, but we need to support where we live as well.”
Geraldine McNally said that having the variable building heights was much more aesthetically appealing look than the two-story limit that criticshave said should be imposed on any new development. “You can’t have them all the same — you’ll look like Levittown,” she said.
What it looks like is of little concern, one young woman said, as long as it makes Hampton Bays an appealing place to live again.
“I just want my friends to move back here,” the woman, who identifi ed herself simply as Stephanie, said. “Two stories, three stories. Whatevergets them here. I’m one of the youngest people in this room because my friends have moved away. There’s nothing to do, they can’t aff ord it,they’re bored in the winter.
“If we have a vibrant downtown, I don’t care what it looks like, as long as its cute and it’s fun and my generation and your kids’ generation canaff ord to live there.”