Thiele Decries Dilapidated State of Stony Brook Southampton Facilities

State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. this week decried the sorry state of the Stony Brook Southampton campus, charging that by failing to meet its stewardship commitment to the 80-acre site, Stony Brook University had become “the biggest slumlord on the East End” and was squandering an opportunity to use the campus as an economic engine for the region.

Thiele said he was primarily concerned about several dormitories that have been condemned and the state of Southampton Hall, which once served as the center of campus life dating back to the days when Southampton College, a satellite of Long Island University, occupied the site.

“Southampton Hall and the dorms are falling down,” he said. “Nobody is in charge, and, what’s worse, they don’t have a plan.”

He proposed a three-point plan requesting that Stony Brook appoint an administrator to oversee the campus, commit to the renovation of Southampton Hall, which it pledged to do four years ago, and create a five-year master plan for the rest of the campus.

In a press release issued on February 8, Thiele noted that he and former State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle had successfully convinced Stony Brook University to take over the Southampton College campus in 2006. “Since then, Stony Brook University has had a checkered record as the steward of the campus,” he said.

After first trying to close the campus in 2009, the university relented and put Matthew Whelan, its vice president for strategic initiatives, in charge. Under his leadership, a new building for the Marine Sciences program was completed and several graduate health sciences programs were established. Those programs combined with the ongoing Fine Arts program run by Robert Reeves helped spur a rebound in enrollment to about 800 students, Thiele said.

“The future of the campus was bright” when Stony Brook University Hospital merged with Southampton Hospital and announced plans to build a state-of-the-art hospital on the north side of the campus, Thiele added.

But ever since Whelan left Stony Brook in 2020 to become president of Caldwell University in New Jersey, progress has stalled, Thiele said.

Over the 2018-19 academic year, Stony Brook committed to a multimillion-dollar renovation of Southampton Hall and allocated $200,000 to a feasibility study for that project, but it has yet to move forward.

“I gave them a pass for the pandemic,” Thiele said, “but this can’t be ignored any longer.”

Thiele said that he and State Senator Anthony Palumbo, in a letter to Stony Brook President Maurie D. McInnis in July 2022, encouraged the university to apply for a grant from the $350 million Long Island Investment Fund, which was established by the State Legislature last year to provide funding for “large-scale transformative projects that will have lasting impacts on Long Island” — but Stony Brook failed to apply for funding, Thiele said.

Investing in the campus would have positive economic benefits for the region, Thiele and Palumbo stated in their letter, noting payroll and other activities easily accounted to more than $1.6 million in economic impact.

Investing in the campus’s academic facilities could create a jewel, he said. Instead, he said he feared “you’re going to have a brand new hospital surrounded by a bunch of condemned buildings.”

In an unattributed statement issued through its media relations department on February 9, Stony Brook reaffirmed its commitment to the Southampton campus, citing a number of programs that have been expanded and the effort to build an emergency room satellite to East Hampton and plan for the future construction of a new hospital at the campus.

Stony Brook also said it would soon launch a search for a placement for Whelan, who will be charged with formulating “an overall strategy for our Southampton campus.” However, the statement did not mention either Southampton Hall or the closed dormitories.

“We appreciate our long-standing relationship with Assemblyman Thiele and his continued support of our Southampton campus and the entire East End community,” the statement concluded. “We respect his passion for the campus, which was shown recently through his securing support to repair the historic windmill on campus, and look forward to continue working with him on issues important to the East End.”