Huntington approves first Melville overlay project, bringing hundreds of condos

Huntington has approved the first project under its Melville Town Center Overlay District, clearing a $130 million plan at 75 Maxess Road that would replace a 170,000-square-foot office-industrial building with 400 homes, retail space and new pedestrian amenities in the heart of Melville.

The Town Board voted 4-1 on April 14, 2026, to back Melville Crossing, the Bethpage-based Steel 75 Maxess LLC proposal. The project calls for 290 rental apartments, 110 condominiums and 40 live/work units across seven four-story buildings, four three-story buildings and three one-story retail buildings, plus a 6,300-square-foot clubhouse, about 37,300 square feet of retail, a public plaza, a promenade and a walking trail. Twenty percent of the residential units are set aside as affordable or workforce housing.

The approval gives Huntington its first test case for a district adopted on December 10, 2024, after months of debate over what should happen to a narrow swath of Melville south of the Long Island Expressway. The overlay centers on Maxess Road, Melville Park Road, Baylis Road and Corporate Center Drive, and town documents say it is designed to create a walkable downtown with storefronts and housing above them while preserving a substantial amount of office space. The town also has the ability to pause residential approvals after 400 units for an impact assessment, a safeguard built into the broader 7-to-10-year plan.

That control was central to the public discussion around traffic, schools, water supply, fire service, electricity and other infrastructure. The site sits in an area where 160 of 163 analyzed parcels, or 98%, have already been developed, a sign of how little untouched land remains in the corridor. Any added traffic from hundreds of apartments and condominiums would be felt on the roads feeding the Long Island Expressway and the surrounding business district, where a light-industrial landscape is now being asked to function more like a downtown.

Supporters, including the Huntington Township Housing Coalition, praised the vote as progress toward more homes and a more walkable Melville. The town says the project is consistent with the Huntington Comprehensive Plan and that its broader SEQRA review will be followed by site-specific review as the district moves ahead. For Melville, the decision is less a single site plan than a precedent: whether the corridor becomes a true center of town or simply a new form of zoning pressure.