The Melville Warehouse Plan Lost 200,000 Square Feet and Gained a Vehicle Yard

The warehouse project on Spagnoli Road in Melville is back before the Huntington Planning Board on Wednesday, September 16, and it is a much smaller building than the one the board approved less than two years ago. The site plan now on the agenda calls for a single distribution center of 157,067 square feet. The plan it replaces had two buildings totaling 357,130.

That is roughly 200,000 square feet of new industrial space that will not be built a quarter mile off Route 110, and the land it would have covered is being put to a different use: the applicant also holds a zoning grant to store vehicles outdoors overnight.

What is on the table Wednesday

The applicant is Spagnoli Road LLC, which lists an address on Plaza Drive in Secaucus, New Jersey. Its site plan application was received on September 1, and the draft resolution in the board's packet would grant conditional approval.

The property sits on the south side of Spagnoli Road, about 1,414 feet west of Broadhollow Road. The parcel covers 31.32 acres and is split between two zones, I-2 Light Industrial and R-40 Residential. It is not in a sewer district. There is no building on it today.

The planning staff briefing sheet asks the board for consensus on four items: an 8-foot fence separating the industrial part of the lot from a 2.72-acre conservation easement, keeping that easement as it was filed with the Suffolk County Clerk in February 2025, and two revisions to the landscape plan, one to satisfy the zoning grant and one to answer staff comments dated September 9.

Before the town will stamp the map, the resolution lists six sign-offs that still have to come in: the South Huntington Water District, the Suffolk County Department of Health Services, and the town's engineering, planning, highway and fire marshal offices.

The plan it replaces

The town's own filings lay out the history. The Planning Board first granted conditional site plan approval on this lot in October 2021. A new application, received in December 2023, proposed two warehouse distribution centers of 138,005 and 219,125 square feet, and the board conditionally approved that one on December 4, 2024. It was amended twice in early 2025 to redraw the conservation area, in part to take out land the town's resolution describes as now tied to a National Grid lease.

Those two building sizes match, to the square foot, the Mid-Island Logistics Center that Hartz Mountain Industries has marketed at 195 Spagnoli Road. The Hartz listing described 36-foot clear heights, 105 loading docks between the two buildings, 92 trailer stalls, and an offer to build to suit or divide the space. It also made the case that Long Island is short of this product, with the developer's figure of about 31 square feet of industrial space per consumer against 83 in northern New Jersey. That is a landlord's argument for its own building, and it was made for the larger plan.

Why a smaller building and a vehicle yard

The Zoning Board of Appeals granted the current version on June 25, 2026. The grant covers an interpretation, a special use permit, signage relief and a continuation of the earlier grants, all to build a warehouse with outdoor overnight storage of vehicles. On the same date, the review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act ended in a negative declaration, meaning no full environmental impact statement is required.

The ZBA attached three conditions. Silt and runoff controls have to be kept in place for the length of construction. Trucks have to be queued on the property so they do not back up onto public roads. And the owner has to work with planning staff to cut down the areas of the site that attract geese.

None of the documents names a tenant. What they do show is a site redesigned around vehicles rather than cubic feet. A speculative warehouse earns its money on building area and dock doors. A user that parks a fleet overnight needs yard, and a lot this size can give up 200,000 square feet of roof and still have acreage to spare. The truck queuing condition fits that reading, though only the applicant can confirm it.

What it means for members

If you were counting on new big-box industrial space in Melville, take this building off your list or at least out of the multi-tenant column. The two-building project was pitched with divisions available. A single 157,067 square foot building paired with a vehicle yard is a different product, and the corridor's supply of modern, divisible distribution space is smaller than it looked in 2024. Anyone renewing Route 110 industrial space in the next two years should price that into the conversation with their landlord.

If you run a fleet or hold I-2 land yourself, read the June 25 ZBA grant. Huntington was willing to allow outdoor overnight vehicle storage on a lot that is partly zoned residential, with conditions on runoff and truck queuing. That is a workable template for an owner with the same problem.

If your business is on Spagnoli Road or the stretch of Route 110 south of the Long Island Expressway, plan on construction traffic once the six outstanding approvals arrive, followed by a site built for vehicle movements. Site contractors, landscapers and fencing firms should note that the landscape plan alone still needs two rounds of revision, which is where the next pieces of work on this job will come from.