Huntington to boost Melville business

by David Winzelberg
Published: June 11, 2010

As bulldozers cleared the site for construction of Canon USA’s new headquarters nearby, Huntington town officials laid out plans Thursday to offer zoning incentives that would attract companies to Melville and strengthen it as a magnet for jobs.

Huntington Supervisor Frank Petrone, Councilman Mark Cuthbertson and town planning chief Anthony Aloisio joined Seymour Liebman from Canon at the RXR Corporate Center to talk about the zoning changes and the public/private partnership that can offer $11.4 million in Recovery Zone Facility Bonds to better connect Melville’s office buildings with the area’s ancillary services and make the area more pedestrian friendly. The bonds can be used to purchase business property within the recovery zone.

Petrone said the prevalence of low-rise structures fronted by parking lots along the Route 110 corridor was outdated. He said sewage capacity also needed to be more predictable.

Work started last month on Canon’s five-story, 668,000 square-foot headquarters on a former 52-acre pumpkin farm at the southwest corner of the Long Island Expressway and Walt Whitman Road.

Jeff Schwartzberg of Sutton and Edwards, president of the Commercial Industrial Brokers Society, said Canon’s decision to headquarter its North American operations on Route 110 “testifies to the vast potential Long Island has as a home to corporate America.”

More than 100 brokers, bankers, attorneys and developers attended the event organized by the CIBS and the Association for a Better Long Island.