• Tritec News

Naming flap ends well; Lindenhurst apts will remain ‘The Wel’

The Wel

Name dropping won’t get you far in the Village of Lindenhurst.

Village officials convinced the commercial real estate firm Fairfield Properties not to rename The Wel apartment building it purchased last month, Mayor Michael Lavorata said. The village expected The Wel’s developer, Tritec Real Estate Co., to hold onto the new residences, but the East Setauket firm was pushed to sell after less than a year by its partner in the project, Lavorata said.

Fairfield Properties’ willingness to abandon the name it originally wanted, Fairfield Metro, shows the company will be good stewards of the 260-unit building steps away from the Lindenhurst Long Island Rail Road station, Lavorata said. The company currently lists the 75 E. Hoffman Ave. building as “Fairfield The Wel at Lindenhurst” on its website. The name pays homage to the 19th century investor Thomas Welwood, whom the misspelled Wellwood Avenue is named after.

“Had they taken the name off, there would have been an uproar,” said Lindenhurst Chamber of Commerce president JoAnn Boettcher. “Some sense of our heritage is still there, our past. It’s not just another company taking it over.”

The $147 million transaction closed on March 24, about 10 months after residents started moving into apartments, Tritec spokesman Christopher Kelly said. Rents ranged from $2,100 to $4,650 a month when the building opened, Kelly said.

Read the full article in Newsday.