Mount Sinai Shopping Center's $15M revamp expected to bring new supermarket, other stores, eateries

The renovation of Mount Sinai Shopping Center will give the property a face-lift and get it ready for at least three new restaurants, a supermarket and other stores.

Last week, Brookhaven’s seven-member planning board, whose members also make up the town board, held a public hearing and then approved a site plan for the proposed revamp of the shopping center, where a 30-year-old King Kullen supermarket closed in 2019.

United Properties Corp. in East Meadow owns the shopping center. But the land use application for the renovation was submitted to the town’s planning department in July by Mount Sinai Regency LLC, which is a subsidiary of Regency Centers Corp., a Jacksonville, Florida-based real estate investment trust.

Neither United nor Regency responded to Newsday’s requests for comment.

Located at 5499 Nesconset Hwy. in Mount Sinai, the 131,779-square-foot shopping center sits on a 14.57-acre site and was built in the late 1980s, Don Hohn, Brookhaven’s director of planning, said during the public hearing Thursday.

The shopping center is overdue for a refresh because it has mostly been unchanged since it was built, representatives for Regency said during the hearing.

"What I will say is that what is proposed here is a revitalization of what has become a dilapidated shopping center. It is much needed," said attorney Brian W. Kennedy, a partner with law firm Forchelli Deegan Terrana LLP in Uniondale who represents Regency.

The renovation will include new facades for the buildings and the construction of a freestanding, 5,080-square-foot building for two quick-service restaurants, Christopher Robinson, president of Huntington-based R&M Engineering, said during the hearing. His company has been hired to work on the shopping center project.

Also King Kullen's former space will be revamped for a new grocery store, he said.

A two-story building on the property has office tenants on the second floor, but its first floor was recently vacated by a Rite Aid drugstore, Robinson said. That former Rite Aid space will be renovated for new retail use and a quick-service restaurant, he said.

The names of the incoming tenants have not been disclosed, he said Monday.

The renovation of Mount Sinai Shopping Center is estimated to cost $15 million and take 18 months to complete, according to the land use application Regency submitted to the town.

Regency owns or operates 485 shopping centers, including 11 on Long Island, and more than 85% of those properties are anchored by grocery stores, according to its website.

"Our grocery anchors are a critical component of our leasing strategy focusing on necessity, service, convenience and value retailers serving the essential needs of our communities," Regency said in a December investor presentation on its website.

Six of Regency’s top 10 tenants are high-performing grocers, including Publix, Albertsons and Whole Foods Market, the report said.

A Whole Foods is planned for another Regency project on Long Island.

Regency is the lead developer in the $93 million redevelopment of The Shops at SunVet, formerly called Sun Vet Mall, in Holbrook, where a Whole Foods will be opening. In 2023, construction work started on the project to transform the nearly vacant, enclosed mall into an open-air shopping center.

Whole Foods did not respond to a request for comment Monday about whether it will be opening a supermarket in Mount Sinai Shopping Center.

By Tory N. Parrish

tory.parrish@newsday.comToryParrish1

Tory N. Parrish covers retail and small business for Newsday. She has worked at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Observer-Dispatch in Utica, N.Y.