Town of Riverhead, New York

out on the east end or anyone in our state, and we have the hotels to support it,” Aguiar says. In addition, the Stony Brook Calverton Incubator offers entrepreneurial incubation space and assistance at its agriculture/aquaculture focused facility to support and structure a growth pathway enabling farmers, start-ups and expanding businesses the opportunity to explore retail food production with less capital and risk. The growth continues with ongoing redevelopment, landing Riverhead Vision Long Island’s 2021 Smart Growth Award. Dawn Thomas, Community Development Director for Riverhead, led the town board’s several redevelopment projects during the pandemic. These include the revitalization of its downtown Main Street. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the street will feature an updated town square with easy access to the river parallel to it. The town board will use grants to demolish three old, vacant department stores next to the Suffolk Theater that are blocking the view of the river, sell property in the area for new buildings framing it, and connect Main Street to it with pedestrian-friendly access. With an enhanced connection to the riverfront will come improved access to Riverhead’s boathouse, which stores kayaks, paddle boards, and rowing sculls for the town’s active rowing club. The updates will also make way for new public gathering areas for events and pop- ups, including an amphitheater, a potential ice-skating rink, and a playground. The new attractions will complement the 1930s art-deco Suffolk Theater. This versatile venue, with a planned expansion, offers cabaret style seating for multiple types of events, like dinner theater, musical performances, and parties in the town square. Reviving Riverhead’s downtown has been a challenge to the town board. As Thomas reports, “A lot of the commercial transactions and the commercial businesses left the small mom Community Development Director, Dawn Thomas