Station Yards development in Ronkonkoma injects cash, spurring wave of suburban renewal, officials say

The neighborhood around the Ronkonkoma train station had seen better days.

Small stores in the aging hamlet closed or stagnated for decades, affecting even longtime shops like Pete D’Onofrio’s pizzeria a few blocks down Union Avenue in Holbrook.

All that changed four years ago, when the first residents started moving into the Alston, a 489-unit apartment complex that had just opened in the megadevelopment now known as Station Yards.

Sales picked up immediately, said D’Onofrio, owner of Joe’s Pizza and Pasta, as Alston residents came in for lunch and dinner, placed orders for delivery and picked up pies and salads. Business at his 46-year-old eatery is “without a doubt” the best it’s ever been, he said.

“More people, more customers. It’s good for the community,” D’Onofrio said. “When you got people around, if you do the right thing, you’re going to be better.”

Station Yards is years from completion, but the $1.2 billion housing and shopping hub is already transforming the formerly rundown area around Ronkonkoma’s Long Island Rail Road station, as older shopping plazas undergo makeovers to attract new customers and hundreds of Station Yards residents pump fresh cash into the neighborhood’s economy, officials and local business leaders say.

Brookhaven Town officials liken Station Yards’ impact to Patchogue’s downtown revitalization, which added more than 600 apartments and more than a dozen restaurants and pubs to a business district previously known for boarded-up storefronts.

Station Yards’ second phase, currently under construction around the intersection of Hawkins and Railroad avenues, has seen the completion of more than 200 additional apartments, plus the openings of new banks, bars, stores, restaurants and health care clinics, according to developer Tritec Real Estate.

When this part is finished in 2026 , Tritec will have built a total of 1,052 apartments, 68,419 square feet of retail and 16,500 square feet of offices since construction started in November 2017.

Tritec is among Station Yards’ new tenants, having relocated its headquarters from East Setauket.

Read the full article in Newsday.