Riverhead residents urge town to spare planned science center site

A packed hearing over 111 E. Main St. became a test of what Riverhead wants downtown to be: a science and education anchor on Main Street, or another parcel absorbed into the larger Town Square redevelopment.

For more than 2 1/2 hours, residents argued that the former Swezey’s building should stay in the hands of A Place for Learning Inc., the nonprofit owner of the Long Island Science Center. The town has been moving toward condemnation of the property, and no decision was made at the end of the hearing. Riverhead Town Board members left the record open for written comments for 10 days.

The fight has been building for months. On April 21, the Town Board voted 3-2 to schedule the May 20 public hearing, with Supervisor Jerry Halpin and Council Member Bob Kern voting no. Town officials have said the property is needed for general municipal purposes and have tied the acquisition to flood mitigation, coastal resiliency and the broader Town Square plan, which also includes a planned hotel by master developer J. Petrocelli Riverhead Town Square LLC.

Opponents say the town is trying to use eminent domain for a wider redevelopment agenda instead of a clearly defined municipal need. At the hearing, residents questioned what specific public use would replace the science center and warned that displacing the project would weaken Main Street’s appeal to families, students and visitors who could bring steady foot traffic downtown.

The science center’s backers have spent years trying to turn the building into a destination. A Place for Learning Inc. bought 111 E. Main St. in 2020 for the project, and Riverhead previously backed away from eminent domain in May 2025 after the nonprofit presented a two-phase plan. At that point, the center had hoped to begin with a storefront opening by fall 2025 once permits were in place.

The revised plan became more detailed this spring. Architect Jordan Rogove of DXA Studio said the first phase would open about 4,000 square feet at the front of the building, followed later by a 150-seat planetarium and second-story exhibition and event space. Supporters say that kind of year-round programming would give downtown Riverhead a family-friendly draw that is harder to replace than office space or a generic commercial use.

The stakes also sharpened because a roughly $1 million Suffolk County JumpSMART reimbursement grant tied to the project faced a June deadline as the nonprofit struggled to move forward. Town officials said the project had stalled, building permits were not in place and communication had broken down as the deadline neared.

Under New York’s Eminent Domain Procedure Law, Riverhead must hold a public hearing before taking private property, and then has 90 days to decide whether to proceed. For Main Street, that clock now measures more than a legal deadline. It will help decide whether downtown Riverhead keeps room for a science center that residents see as a civic asset, or whether redevelopment priorities will push it aside.