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October 31, 2011

Two Men One Vision


Both Gerald Wolkoff and Charles Wang have a vision of building a destination center for Long Island.  Wang's vision was the Lighthouse project, which was shot down in 2009.  While Wolkoff's vision is the Heartland Town Square Project, which was first presented ten years ago.

 Heartland Town Square project he first proposed in 2002 is 451-acre with 8,999 apartments and three office towers, including one 20 stories tall, plus stores, restaurants, convention center and landscaped walkways.  The site for this project is in Brentwood, which is located in Suffolk County.  The local community support the benefits this project would bring, but it is still having difficulty seeing the light of a day.  A major reason for the delays of this project is the financial climate at this time.  Wolkoff says that if he builds the project in three phases like the county and local towns want that gaining the financial backing he needs becomes more difficult.

This leads me to question why can't Charles Wang and Gerald Wolkoff join forces.  Having two billionaires back the project should make banks more willing to back the project.  Both men would be able to accomplish their dream of giving Long Island a destination center and the Islanders could get a new home.  They could make the convention center an arena/convention center, since its the same size and scope in terms of zoning. Another project that could help make this area of Suffolk Long Island's destination center is the  Ronkonkoma train station into a mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly community.  If Wang still wants to get something built all signs point to Suffolk as the best option at this time.
Additional Reading:
http://www.aaezine.org/articles/vol13/13N3SuffolkCoandCharlesWang.shtml
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4189/is_20060324/ai_n16167900/
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/four-firms-in-running-for-ronkonkoma-hub-1.3284921
http://mobile.newsday.com/inf/infomo;JSESSIONID=5F6B97FDECE128784844.3149?site=newsday&view=search_results_item&feed:a=newsday_5min&feed:c=longisland&feed:i=1.2787520&part=1


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