Sayville Main Street plan sparks debate over tax breaks, parking, character

A Babylon asbestos-removal company is seeking about $321,000 in tax breaks from Islip to move its corporate headquarters into the former Rite Aid building at 101 Main Street in Sayville, a plan that could bring 45 employees downtown and eventually grow to 56 within two years.

The proposal, for International Asbestos Removal, was listed on the Town of Islip Industrial Development Agency’s March 24, 2026 agenda as an inducement resolution, and the town board discussion memorandum also placed the matter before town officials that day. Town officials said the move would represent a $5 million capital investment and a major reuse of a vacant commercial property in the middle of Sayville’s walkable village center.

For the town’s industrial development agency, the project fits the basic purpose of a public benefit corporation created in 1974 to promote and assist business facilities and job growth. For many people around Main Street, though, the question is not only whether the building can be filled, but what kind of tenant belongs in a district anchored by restaurants, shops and pedestrians.

Greater Sayville Chamber of Commerce administrator Eileen Tyznar said the company does not fit the Main Street climate, and the chamber has started an online page to oppose the move and a petition that gathered more than 100 signatures in its first few days. Residents raised concerns about work vehicles, pressure on already limited parking and whether a hazardous-materials contractor belongs steps away from eateries and boutiques, even if the company would not be handling asbestos on Main Street in the same way it does at job sites.

International Asbestos Removal is headquartered at 119 Cooper Street in Babylon, was founded in 1987 and is described in business directories as a licensed, bonded, insured contractor with about 50 employees and WBE certification. The company says it handles environmental divisions work and insulation, but the Sayville fight is less about its trade than its address, and about whether a health-adjacent business changes the feel of the village core.

The former Rite Aid site is listed as a 13,035-square-foot building with about 80 feet of frontage, rear parking for more than 200 cars in a free municipal lot, about 37 dedicated parking spaces and street parking. One listing says traffic on the block exceeds 17,000 cars a day, a number that helps explain why parking has become such a sensitive issue in Sayville.

That sensitivity is not new. The chamber previously pushed for reopening a North Main Street parking lot that business owners considered essential, and the town had leased that property in the past to provide extra spaces for Main Street merchants. With the International Asbestos Removal application still unresolved, the Sayville debate is now becoming a test of precedent: whether a central retail block can absorb a nontraditional office tenant, and how much strain on parking and identity downtown residents are willing to accept.