Downtown Baldwin eyed for housing development by business partners

Business partners behind a Long Island bagel chain are planning to turn their old cafe and commissary kitchen in Baldwin into a 58-unit, $20.8 million apartment development, with the help of tax incentives.

Randy Narod and Joseph Anzalone, who started Long Island Bagel Cafe more than two decades ago, said they want to build the mixed-use, market-rate apartment complex on the site of their building at 2162 Grand Ave. and three others they own on the street.

If completed, the development would hold 49 one-bedroom apartments and nine two-bedroom units, Narod said.

The duo applied for tax incentives from the Town of Hempstead Industrial Development Agency in January last year, and the IDA held a public hearing on the project Tuesday, though it has not yet given its final approval, the IDA's chief executive, Fred Parola, said.

The proposed project comes amid Baldwin’s ongoing downtown revitalization, a plan to add housing, retail and pedestrian-friendly street upgrades, with the help of a $10 million state grant, Newsday reported.

"It's exciting for us," said Narod, 50, who grew up in Oceanside.

"It's our backyard," he said of the downtown area. "So we're just happy to be part of it and build a beautiful building."

A handful of Baldwin housing developments have received public subsidies through the $10 million state grant, including the Baldwin Commons, a four-story building that offered 33 apartments for below-market rents through a housing lottery last year, Newsday previously reported.

In 2019, then-Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced the grant for Baldwin — among 100 applicants statewide, and one of 10 regional winners, of a total of $100 million in state funding.

Narod and Anzalone said they plan to demolish their existing buildings on the downtown Baldwin site: the Long Island Bagel Cafe commissary and three smaller properties, including The Smoking Club and Lounge, a cigar lounge at 2150 Grand Ave., once home to scuba spot Danny’s Dive Shop.

A phone message to the cigar lounge seeking comment on the project was not returned.

Narod expects the project to create about 75 construction jobs and to hire one or two full-time employees at the building after it’s completed.

"I’m excited for the Baldwin community," said Anzalone, 54. " It's a great way to bring in residents."

Narod and Anzalone said they are actively looking for a developer to partner with them on the project, as they’ve never built a multifamily property before. Their building permit application is still under review, according to the Town of Hempstead.

The duo hope to secure tax breaks from the Hempstead IDA for the market-rate building. They applied for a sales tax exemption of about $844,804, a mortgage recording tax exemption of roughly $109,487 and 20 years of tax relief, according to the IDA application.

John Kaehny, the executive director of the government watchdog group Reinvent Albany, said the practice of IDAs awarding subsidies like the one Narod and Anzalone hope to receive is unconstitutional. It's also "extremely unfair," Kaehny added, to give tax breaks to market-rate housing developments, where a landlord can charge any rent they want.

"When one property owner does not pay their fair share of property taxes, it means that others pay more," he said. "What you're doing by giving tax breaks is engaging in crony capitalism where the government is picking favorites."

Those tax breaks are needed by developers to get projects off the ground, even projects without affordable apartments, said Kyle Strober, executive director of the Association for a Better Long Island.

“Long Island needs all types of housing,” Strober said. “There is a huge demand for market-rate housing, and all housing that gets built increases the supply and reduces the demand.”