Station Yards bets on Long Island retailers to fill spaces, draw shoppers to Ronkonkoma site

Station Yards, the massive mixed-use development taking shape beside the Ronkonkoma train station, has a strong retail tenancy because of a focus on bringing in locally owned businesses instead of national chains, the developer said.

“We wanted it to be this place that felt like Long Island when you got here. … Like you couldn’t pick it up and drop it in the middle of any other city” that was already “full of Cheesecake Factories and Starbucks,” said Christopher Kelly, senior vice president of Tritec Real Estate Co., the Ronkonkoma-based developer.

Located on a 53-acre site stretching from Garrity Avenue east to Mill Road, in a former industrial and retail district north of the Long Island Rail Road station, the $1.3 billion Station Yards development will have 1,450 apartments, 195,000 square feet of retail space and 360,000 square feet of office space when it is complete in six to eight years.

Of the 67,000 square feet of space for stores, eateries and other businesses that has been constructed so far, 89% is leased to 19 tenants, Kelly said. Those that have opened since fall 2024 include Great South Bay Brewery, the Tex-Mex eatery Lucharitos, Vespa Italian Kitchen and Cocktails, Toast Coffee & Kitchen, Cornucopia Natural Foods grocery store, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream shop, Hammer & Stain crafting studio, Playa Bowls and FourLeaf Federal Credit Union.

All but Ben & Jerry’s, Playa Bowls and Hammer & Stain are businesses with older locations that started on Long Island.

‘Any woman’s dream’

Also, new tenants under construction are Hotworx, an infrared sauna fitness studio that will open this spring; The French Workshop, a bakery that will open by May; and Bloom, a combination florist, hair salon and spa that will open in April.

Bloom is “any woman’s dream, and that’s what I wanted to encapsulate,” said the shop’s owner, Kerry Weisse, a Long Island resident.

Bloom will employ 12 professionals experienced in the floral, hairstyling and aesthetician industries, said Weisse, who expects to draw a significant amount of wedding-related business.

She chose Station Yards because of its status as a mixed-use development, she said.

“It is a community there, and we wanted to make sure that we cater to everybody,” she said.

Read the full article in Newsday.