Letters

While Bay Street Theater’s proposal to a new building on Long Island Avenue is most impressive, I can’t be equally enthusiastic about their plan to lease the former gas works property on Spring Street from National Grid. As with much of the theater’s development plan, the details have been disclosed piecemeal. I presume they intend to use the property for parking. The theater undoubtedly needs parking for its patrons, and the property in question appears ideally suited because of its proximity to the Long Island Avenue location.

But the Village of Sag Harbor is desperately short of vehicle parking spaces in the Business District. For the past several years, the Spring Street property has helped to satisfy that need. The trustees recognized this by attempting to renew its lease. The theater apparently tendered a higher bid.

However civic-minded Bay Street Theater may be, it is unreasonable to ask that they make the parking lot they’ve paid for available to the general public, and the village should not expect them to do so.

It is no answer to say that the theater stages most of its activities during the evening hours, and the parking lot might be open to the public during the business day. That is not a solution. The “business day” for all Sag Harbor’s restaurants and many of its retail stores extends well past 5 o’clock during the summer months, and the recently reopened Sag Harbor Cinema also requires parking in the evenings.

While everyone hopes that Bay Street Theater will prosper and occupy the Long Island Avenue site for years to come, there is no guarantee that the property and associated parking lot might not one day come into the hands of a business with even heavier daytime or evening traffic.

Sag Harbor Village has needed additional parking for years, and that need transcends the needs of any individual enterprise. The village has the means to acquire the Spring Street parcel permanently by condemnation. It should take immediate steps to do so.

Miles B. Anderson, Esq.

Sag Harbor