Apartment developer Heatherwood and Riverhead Town officials today celebrated the groundbreaking of a new downtown apartment building on East Main Street, nine years in the making.
The five-story mixed-use building, dubbed Heritage on Main, is an $82 million project located on a 1.4-acre vacant lot between East End Arts and the Riverview Lofts apartment building. It will feature 165 market-rate rentals— 52 studio units, 80 one-bedroom units, and 33 two-bedroom units — on the second through fifth floors, plus 155 parking stalls, and 7,910 square feet of first-floor commercial, amenity and leasing space.
Supervisor Tim Hubbard hailed the project as a “key piece of the puzzle” in the revitalization of downtown Riverhead.
“We know the possibilities that this town has. We share them with Heatherwood, and we’re so proud to have Heatherwood be a partner with us in our revitalization of our downtown area,” Hubbard said. “I know it’s taken a long time to get here, the stars have finally aligned. Today is happening.”
Heatherwood, a major developer of luxury rentals on Long Island, has a ‘perfect reputation,” Hubbard said. “They stick with their product. They build it, they stay with it and they maintain it. And that’s what we want. That’s what we need.”
Heatherwood President Christopher Capece thanked town officials for their help in facilitating the project, which was first presented to the town in 2016. The Town Board granted final site plan approval in October 2023, after Heatherwood acquired the project.
Construction is expected to be completed in two years, Capece said.
“Like they say, it takes a village. But maybe it also takes a town, with a little help from Heatherwood, to kind of get it over the goal line,“ Capece said.
“The waterfront has been revitalized. The town has put a lot of money into revitalizing their infrastructure here,” Capece said. “So you see the vision, you see it coming together, and we’re very grateful to be part of your vision, supervisor.”
Capece said groundbreakings for projects like Heritage on Main are becoming rare, “especially at a time when the economic market is still a little rough.” He said the building is “going to be a little gem in the downtown for a long time” and complement the nearby town square, which is being developed with another mixed-use building, a new Long Island Science Center museum, a public plaza and a new children’s playground.
Market-rate apartments are “sorely needed on Long Island,” Capece said, noting that housing prices on the East End have “outpaced the rest of the region.”
Rents at the building will range from about $2,400 per month for studio apartments to $3,000 per month for one-bedroom apartments and about $3,600 for the two-bedroom units, Heatherwood officials said during a December 2023 hearing.
The project received financial assistance from the Riverhead Industrial development agency, which includes property tax reductions for 16 years, mortgage recording tax exemptions, and state and local sales tax exemptions.
Town officials have encouraged the development of mixed-use apartment buildings as a part of their downtown revitalization strategy. Most of the apartments built so far have been on East Main Street, within a designated urban renewal area. The town has created a second urban renewal area near the Riverhead Long Island Rail Road station to encourage additional apartments development there.
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