Southampton Town Plans To Buy Lobster Inn Property With CPF Funds For Shellfish Hatchery

The Southampton Town Board is expected to follow through this week with the purchase of a well-known former restaurant property in Shinnecock Hills for $8.5 million, via Community Preservation Fund revenues.

The former Lobster Inn—operated most recently as the Lobster Grille Inn until it closed last fall—will be converted to a shellfish hatchery when the purchase is finalized, possibly as early as Thursday, October 12.

The pending purchase of the land just north of the terminus of Sunrise Highway was discussed at length during Tuesday’s Town Board meeting. The Town Board was originally expected to vote on the purchase Tuesday afternoon but opted to table the resolution to add language allowing the property to be used for educational purposes.

The majority of the 10 acres will be purchased via the CPF in the typical fashion, to preserve the land from development. But a 1-acre swath on the western side of the property, which includes a house, will be purchased with $1.2 million from CPF funds set aside for water quality improvement projects, explained CPF Manager Mary Wilson. She noted that the land will be used for a sewage treatment facility.

The highly visible property, which actually consists of three adjoining parcels, includes waterfront land, a dock with 48 boat slips, and access to both Cold Spring Pond and Peconic Bay. The properties are currently owned by a pair of limited liability corporations, Peconic Bay Marina LLC and Peconic Bay Residence LLC.

If the town goes through with its purchase, the old Lobster Inn property could retain a restaurant use, perhaps coinciding with the shellfish hatchery, as long as it does not become the main use of the property, Ms. Wilson added.

“You could have a small clam bar, but you could not turn the entire Lobster Inn into a seafood restaurant,” Ms. Wilson said during Tuesday’s meeting. “That’s the distinction.”

The site also will continue to house the marina, which currently has 48 boat slips. The revenue generated from the boats will be used to maintain the marina and Lobster Inn property, though it cannot be used to fund the shellfish hatchery.

Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman noted that there could be state funding to help run the hatchery.

The supervisor noted that he already spoke to water quality expert Dr. Christopher Gobler, a professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University, who supported the idea of a shellfish hatchery at the site.

After many years as a restaurant, the Lobster Inn property had been targeted for development at times in recent years.

In 1969, George “Skip” Tollefsen opened the Lobster Inn there, and, 40 years later, he received Southampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals approval to build 25 beach cottage-style condominium units on the land.

After closing the restaurant after several decades, he then sold the property to Peconic Bay Marina LLC in 2011. The Suffolk County Health Department would not allow 25 residential units to be built there without a sewage treatment system, but in 2014 a plan was submitted that included one, and the applicants also sought to change the use of the Lobster Inn from a restaurant to a clubhouse.

At one point, condominiums were envisioned for the site, in a project dubbed “The Maritime.” After that, Douglas Elliman Real Estate pitched building 13 luxury homes or 25 townhouses, with a 48-slip marina.

For four years, Randy Riess and Tim Burke operated a restaurant there, called the Lobster Grille Inn. They closed and moved out in October 2016, saying the landlord, Eldad Levy, the president and CEO of Centrock Corporation in Manhattan, could not guarantee them the space through the summer of 2017, so it didn’t make sense to stay.