Citing Costs, Moore Taps Brakes on Westhampton Community Center

A proposal to develop a new Westhampton Community Center on Old Riverhead Road is under review by the newly seated Southampton Town Board.

Town Supervisor Maria Moore said this week that the board, which has three new members, including herself, as of January 1, would be taking a hard look at “all available options and whether the current location is the most appropriate for all the services we seek.”

The facility under review is a former auto dealership and restaurant that was purchased by the town in 2020 for $4.1 million through a bond authorization and in a process championed and led by now-former Councilman John Bouvier.

The building already has a sign in front of it announcing it as the new home of the Westhampton Community Center while it awaits the arrival of numerous contractors who would repurpose the facility. Those contractors appeared to be well on their way to being named following a request for proposals that the town issued late last year.

Moore, the mayor of Westhampton Beach before she was elected as town supervisor in November, said she appreciated Bouvier’s efforts “toward bringing that to fruition” and said she supported the Westhampton community’s long-held desire for a new community center. “I share that commitment and goal,” she said.

As proposed, the facility would feature numerous services for seniors, including nutritional support, and provide space for satellite town offices and a home for the local Westhampton American Legion Arthur Ellis Hamm Post 834, which has been without one for more than 10 years.

The town purchased the building after a decades-long effort to open a new community center, more than a quarter century after the former community center at 406 Mill Road, which was bought by the town in 1987, fell into disrepair and was eventually abandoned by the town.

Then, a proposed 2018 build-out at the Hampton Business District at Francis S. Gabreski Airport, via a public-private partnership with the Rechler Equity Group, did not materialize over cost concerns.

Finally, Bouvier and his colleagues identified the 112 Old Riverhead Road property as a prime candidate and the town moved to purchase it.

The 22,000-square-foot facility, formerly the home of Manhattan Motorcars of the Hamptons and Annona Restaurant, is a gleaming and glass-filled three-story building with elevators and lots of parking. As part of an agreement between the town and the building’s former owner, a 9/11 memorial would be constructed on the site.

The repurposing project appeared to be well on its way to getting off the ground late last year when the town issued requests for proposals to contractors who would do the work.

The town received numerous bids across numerous contractors and signaled that the repurposing project would itself run into the millions of dollars — everything from plumbing to HVAC to electrical work was part of the bidding package.

It is now unknown whether any of those bids would be accepted, given this new uncertainty about the project’s prospect as a whole.

“As would be expected upon taking office,” Moore said via email, “the current board is doing its due diligence in reviewing all the capital projects and evaluating them in the context of our priorities.”

She said the board will further discuss the project at work sessions and meetings over the next few weeks.

Moore was asked a few follow-up questions about the process moving forward and what might be under consideration beyond simply tapping the brakes on the project so the new board could fully vet the proposal.

Would the board possibly move to reject the building as a suitable place for the new community center? What would happen to the building were the town to decide it is not going to move forward in developing the WCC at that location? Is the building suitable for perhaps some but not all of the proposed functions that have been detailed by the previous board?

“The answers to those questions are exactly what we are currently looking into,” Moore said, further noting that she would have “something more definitive, most likely before our next board meeting on February 13.”