Shinnecock Nation Begins Clearing Land That Will Be Home to New Gas Station

Earlier this week, the Shinnecock Nation officially began work on the construction of a long-awaited gas station and convenience store that will be built on 10 acres of Shinnecock sovereign land at its Westwoods property on the north side of Sunrise Highway, near the Shinnecock monuments, in Hampton Bays.

The nation has been planning to construct the travel plaza, which would include not only the gas station but a convenience store and possibly another retail space, for years, dating back as far as 2017, according to Bryan Polite, the chairman of the Shinnecock Council of Trustees.

Clear-cutting of the wooded 10-acre area that will be home to the gas station plaza began this week and was visible from Sunrise Highway.

The station will be owned by the tribe as a whole through Shinnecock Sovereign Holdings, a federally chartered corporation owned by the tribe to manage economic development initiatives.

The gas station will give the nation an economic boost — and should be popular with motorists, because it will offer tax-free gas.

The tribe had hoped to have the gas station up and running much sooner, but the pandemic and other issues led to delays. Polite, who has been involved in managing the project from the start, along with several other tribal leaders and Shinnecock Sovereign Holdings members, said earlier this week that it was good to see the project finally getting off the ground.

“These projects that we’ve talked about for years now, some of them are finally starting to get to the building phase,” he said. “It’s been a journey.”

When asked when the gas station and travel plaza would be complete, Polite was hesitant to provide an exact date when construction would be finished and the station would open, cautioning that construction project time estimates are almost never accurate.

“I can’t really give a timeline on it,” he said. “But we’re hoping to be complete within eight or nine months with the build-out, with a projected opening in the spring of 2025.”