Senator Johnson Announces Grant Money To Demolish Andrews Avenue Property

State Senator Owen H. Johnson (4th Senate District, Babylon), Chairman of the Finance Committee, today announced that the Town of Babylon has been awarded two New York State grants totaling more than $82,000 through Restore New York’s Communities Initiative (Restore-NY) -- a program designed to aid municipalities in rehabilitating or removing obsolete or rundown commercial and residential properties. The goal of the program is to make these sites attractive to residents and businesses searching for investment property.

The projects to be funded in the Town of Babylon are as follows:

$73,543 will be awarded to the Town of Babylon to demolish the 4,000 square foot Compel building located at 8 Andrews Avenue in Wyandanch. This will ready the site for either a local health center or a mixed use building.

$8,484 will be awarded to the Town to acquire the properties located at 5 and 7 North 15th Street in Wyandanch, which are adjacent to 8 Andrews Avenue. This will result in a 30,000 square foot development parcel when combined with the Andrews Avenue parcel. Currently the parcels on North 15th Street are undersized and, as stand alone properties, are unbuildable.

"The building at Andrews Avenue has long been an eyesore to the community and these grants will no doubt help spur revitalization of this area," said Senator Johnson. "This is very good news for the Wyandanch community."

Senator Johnson explained that the $300 million Restore-NY Communities Initiative was established by the State legislature in the 2006-07 State budget and is administered by the Empire State Development Corporation. Grants will be awarded on a competitive basis to municipalities over the next three years.