Pictured above: Peconic Bay Vineyard employees discuss plans for the hotel at their Cutchogue winery.
There is a lot going on in terms of commercial development on the North Fork, and nowhere more than in the world of hotels. Three hotels are currently being built along Main Road (Route 25) between Mattituck and Southold.
In Southold, the plan for The Enclaves, a 40-room 74-seat hotel and restaurant, event space, and spa on 6.75 acres on a section of Main Road east of downtown, has the anger of neighbors on drawn. who came out in droves to condemn the project at a hearing on October 14 before the city’s ZBA. Hotels in this village industrial area are considered by the ZBA as “special exceptional use”.
A little further west, across from King Kullen in Cutchogue, the Soloviev Group, which has acquired substantial land on the North Fork in recent years, is planning a similarly large project, albeit on much larger land, at Peconic Bay Vineyards. a winery that closed for eight years before being bought and reopened earlier this year by a team led by Stacey Soloviev.
That plan would include a 40-room hotel and spa designed to provide a complete winemaking experience on the North Fork. This also requires a special special permit from the ZBA.
The former headquarters of Capital One Bank in Mattituck, which could become the largest hotel on the North Fork.
By far the largest planned new hotel in North Fork was proposed by Alan Cardinale, owner of the former Capital One Bank headquarters on Main Road west of downtown Mattituck.
The most recent proposal for this property in September 2020 was a two-story, 125-bedroom hotel and restaurant with 300 seats, down from a three-story, 200-bedroom hotel that was proposed in 2018.
Hoping to stay one step ahead of the controversy surrounding the Peconic Bay Vineyards proposal, management invited the community to an open house at the winery on November 8, with free wine and sausages.
More than 150 people came.
Ms. Soloviev, whose ex-husband Stephan Soloviev lives in East Hampton, manages several properties for him while she is raising her children in North Fork, including Santa’s Christmas Tree Farm in Cutchogue, the Chequit Inn on Shelter Island, several thousand acres of farmland and now Peconic Bay Vineyards, which are on 53 acres, 16 of which are commercially zoned and the remainder is in 2 acre residential areas where agriculture is a permitted use.
“I work for my ex-husband. I pay my Ag payments and he leaves me alone, ”she told the crowd at the winery on November 8th. “But I have no choice. This property has to be developed. “
Peconic Bay Winery in Cutchogue
She added that two shopping malls the size of King Kullen Shopping Center could be built on the property as of now, along with 50 apartments, but she plans to build something on a much smaller scale.
“I want to make a hotel that is total immersion in the wine and has people involved in the winemaking process,” she said, adding that the hotel would have 10 rooms in a main building on the premises of the current tasting room, which is year round be open, surrounded by separate four-room bungalows that can be operated seasonally.
The main building would be 6,000 square feet and include a pool and spa. She said the vineyard’s 37 acres would remain planted, although an earlier version of the hotel plan indicated that houses could be built there.
She added that the hotel, designed by architect Glen Coben, would use modern materials like hemp concrete and glass, and the actual wine studio would be sunk with a green roof. There would likely be retail stores within the building selling local meat and vegetables, as well as space for small North Fork farmers to display their products. She added that she would like to partner with other local wineries on educational events there.
The project would include a $ 1 million commercial nitrogen-reducing wastewater treatment system now needed by the Suffolk County Department of Health for the new build, and Ms. Soloviev said a traffic study is in the works. She added that she hopes the immersive element of the project will attract many visitors to spend their time on-site during their stay.
Ms. Soloviev said that she originally wanted to build a hotel with 25 rooms and Stephan Soloviev wanted to build a hotel with 100 rooms there.
“He knows my vision and believes in everything I do,” she said. “Right now he’s leaving me alone, but I can’t fail.”
She said if this project doesn’t work they will likely sell the property which could then be developed by someone else.
While the crowd at the winery generally seemed receptive to the proposal, it was in stark contrast to an October 14 hearing for The Enclaves project in Southold.
For more than three hours, residents wondered if the city’s infrastructure could handle The Enclaves project, wondering aloud if a 2018 traffic study of the project will be re-run after a massive influx of new people into the area since the pandemic and asked what? the impact would affect the use of local beaches.
The proposed location of the enclaves in Southold.
Despite the outcry, the Zoning Appeal Chamber has less of a legal burden of proof to approve special exemption than to grant derogations, a factor raised at both the enclave hearing and the Soloviev Open House.
“This is not a popularity contest,” Southold Town attorney Bill Duffy told the crowd at the The Enclaves hearing. You are bound by the code and that will guide you in your decision. “
“A special exception use is simply a use that is approved when certain conditions are met,” he added. “Courts have ruled that the inclusion of a special exceptional use in a land use district is tantamount to a statutory determination that the permissible uses are compatible with the land use district.”
The four conditions that must be met include the minimum property size, the limit on the number of guest rooms depending on the availability of public water and sewerage, the maximum room size, and the requirement that audible music played on site not be at the property line can be heard, said Mr Duffy.
The Board of Appeal had not yet decided on the application at the time of going to press. They will next meet on December 2nd.
Southold Town is in the process of hiring a consultant to make recommendations on changing areas as part of the implementation of its comprehensive plan.
City Mayor Scott Russell warned at a November 4 working meeting that some aspects of the comprehensive plan may not be in line with current concerns.
“I know there are a lot of concerns about hotels right now, but the reality is that the comp plan says hotels are needed,” he said. “Whether they correspond to the community character, that is the balancing act.”
