8 Photos
East Quogue's Coastal Gas Station Wants to Add a Convenience Store TOM GOGOLA
Brake Shop in East Quogue Seeks Town Approval to Add Housing, Ice Cream Shop, Other Retail to Adjacent Lot TOM GOGOLA
Riverside Roundabout Gas Station Site Would Be Redeveloped as 7-11 TOM GOGOLA
Big plans and new features are in the mix at numerous gas and service stations from Westhampton to Riverside.
Long dormant Hampton Bays service station in midst of very long redevelopment process . TOM GOGOLA
Metro in Westhampton Beach unlikely to be redeveloped as a gas station, says village official. TOM GOGOLA
One resident has called on village to turn abandoned Metro gas station site into a Westhampton Welcome Center. TOM GOGOLA
New Mobile station in Hampton Bays Features a Bolla Market, a growing chain across Long Island TOM GOGOLA
Coming into the long holiday weekend, the average price of a gallon of gas in New York State was $3.91 — and a casual survey of pumps along Montauk Highway shows that some are selling fuel at reliably higher rates than that state average.
Beyond those above-average prices at the pump, there’s also a parallel phenomenon where a seemingly above-average number of gas stations and service stations in the area are in the midst of redevelopment plans, or have just completed one — or are sitting vacant, waiting for whatever may come next, waiting for a good idea.
Here’s a west-to-east guide to service stations in flux along Montauk Highway in the Town of Southampton, with a quick detour to Riverside for the promise of Slurpees and scratch-off lottery tickets, and gas.
Metro, 98 Montauk Highway, Village of Westhampton Beach
In Westhampton Beach, at the beleaguered intersection of Montauk Highway and Old Riverhead Road, there’s a Metro gas station that’s been out of business for more than a decade, whose owners also own the operating Valero station across Old Riverhead Road.
After a years-long process, Westhampton Beach recently changed its zoning to accommodate a food market at the Valero, and for a separate proposed 7-Eleven on Old Riverhead Road. “We’re hoping to see Valero start construction in the near future,” said Brad Hammond, building and zoning administrator for the village.
Hammond says he hopes Valero will do something about the Metro station now that they’ve gotten permission to expand their retail offerings at the across-the-street parcel. One village resident suggested on social media that the Metro site would make an ideal location for a Village of Westhampton Beach welcome center — they’d probably want to deal with the other eyesore at the intersection, the abandoned Dora restaurant on the southwest corner.
“Candidly, there is a hope that, with the redevelopment of the Valero, the owner will be willing to sell or redevelop the defunct Metro station on the northwest corner,” said Hammond. “Both properties are owned by the same entity and it seems redundant to have two gas stations at the same intersection.
“I’m sure that the redevelopment of Valero itself is a big undertaking, so taking some time is understandable.”
Hampton Brakes, 656 and 664 Montauk Highway, East Quogue
It’s not every day that a brake-repair shop wants to open an ice cream parlor, but that’s just what Hampton Brakes is proposing to the Town of Southampton Planning Department.
A presubmission report was recently filed that would see the merger of two adjoining parcels and the construction of a two-story, 3,000-square-foot mixed-use building that would include a mini market and an ice cream shop with 16 outdoor seats.
That building also would feature two moderate-income apartments; a parking lot for 82 vehicles is also proposed, and the 4,746-square-foot brake shop would remain. The new construction would take place at a lot that is directly adjacent to the East Quogue Village Green and its quaint playground located at the southwestern corner of the park.
A site plan has been filed with the town.
Coastal, 535 Montauk Highway, East Quogue
Just up the street from Hampton Brakes, the clean and tidy Coastal gas station in East Quogue, under the aegis of Bridge Petroleum, has an application with the Town Planning Department to upgrade that station with a convenience store and a new canopy. As of late last month, the site plan was undergoing environmental review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act.
Mobile and Bolla Market, 239 West Montauk Highway, Hampton Bays
It’s a very colorful patch of Montauk Highway at the Hampton Bays Mobile Station, with the former Boardy Barn located across the street that’s now called the Barnyard, and a Mobile-Bolla Market juggernaut that has emerged in the past few years as an aggressively convenience-oriented business model across Long Island that combines an Exxon-Mobile Station with food choices that go far beyond typical offerings of gas station peanuts and spongy muffins wrapped in crinkly plastic. Hot foods, sandwiches and lots and lots of coffee options are abounding in this 1,200-square-foot accessory market on the site of a former gas station.
The celebratory bunting out front is a real eye-grabber and announces Bolla’s arrival on the South Fork after it was approved by the Southampton Town Planning Board in 2019 and quickly emerged as the new gold standard for combo gas-and-food emporiums. And after an evening spent carousing at the Barnyard — here’s a ready option for a post-party-time nosh or take-home nightcap. Just be careful crossing Montauk Highway.
Bay Auto Repair, 192 and 194 Montauk Highway, Hampton Bays
The source of a major 2002 leak of MtBE, a gasoline additive, Bay Auto Repair had been shuttered for years before a 2018 plan emerged that would see a new convenience store and gas station with six pumps at the site, totaling about 3,000 square feet. Developers from Holtsville said in 2018 that any new construction would likely hew to other plans approved by the Town of Southampton to create a barn-like building where the blocky and rectangular, abandoned building now rests. That building would be demolished under the redevelopment plan.
The initial plan received Zoning Board approval in 2018, according to Southampton Town documents, a negative SEQRA declaration followed in 2019, and by 2021 the Planning Board was considering a modified site plan application from the developers. Stay tuned.
9-11 Flanders, LLC, 9 Flanders Road, Riverside
Under a plan wending its way through the Town of Southampton’s various permitting and review boards, the abandoned and decrepit gas station at the bustling traffic circle in Riverside would be redeveloped as a 7-Eleven with the addition of six new gas pumps to supplement the sugar and caffeine fuel available from Slurpees and Big Gulps.
A traffic report has been submitted and analyzed in association with a SEQRA review of the fresh proposal for this site, a favorite target of local civic types in Riverside who have been clamoring to bid good riddance to this blight in their community.
