For Taubman, No Choice But To Fight
By Dawn Wotapka Hardesty
Friday, December 29, 2006

Oyster Bay Supervisor John Venditto may not want a mall built in Syosset, but this expensive fight that’s spanned more than a decade, grabbed headlines and sparked countless shouting matches isn’t going to end anytime soon.

On one side, there is Taubman Centers Inc. and its pitch to build a tony mall on the former Cerro Wire and Cable Co. factory north of the Long Island Expressway in Oyster Bay. Then there are the civics and their allies, a powerful and tireless bunch that would rather see the 39-acre site tapped for mixed-use development with housing, a hotel and, possibly, neighborhood merchants.

“I don’t want to remind people how long we have been on Oyster Bay,” said Robert Taubman, the Michigan company’s chairman, president and chief executive in a conference call with analysts and investors this fall.

The sides have been at war since Taubman first proposed the showpiece shopping center – then a million square feet – in 1995.

As the saga has dragged on, the mall’s size has been whittled down to about 860,000 square feet and the project was forced into the courts. An optimistic Taubman continues to sign high-end tenants, including the Island’s first Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom and Barneys New York, while the Cerro Wire Coalition, the chief opposition group, is courting outside developers to build something other than a mall.

“I think Cerro Wire is a test for our future, a poster child of what’s wrong with development and growth on Long Island – the market’s natural plan can be superseded by political factions,” said Clifford Sondock, president of the Land Use Institute, a Jericho organization that promotes free market land use.

That became evident earlier this month, he pointed out. Talks between the town and developer’s team ceased this fall and, on Dec. 19, a bold Venditto said he didn’t want a mall on the site at all and asked Taubman to withdraw its petition. He favors homes built for seniors and first-time buyers – demographics unlikely to flood the local schools with new pupils.

But the decision isn’t up to him: The case is now before the Suffolk County Supreme Court.

“We’re waiting for a decision and then the process will continue,” said a diplomatic Morton Weber, the Weber Law Group senior partner who has worked on the mall since its proposal. That could take several months.

Sondock thinks the court should “protect the property rights of Taubman.”

Jack Kennedy, head of The Building Trades Council of Nassau-Suffolk Counties, an influential group of dozens of unions, agreed. The deal with Taubman would create 500 or so union jobs.

“We’ve been told that all Taubman has to do is be reasonable, downsize the mall and the project will happen. Now he says no matter what the size, no way, no how is there going to be a mall,” Kennedy said. “We felt as though [Venditto] delivered us coal for Christmas.”

To demonstrate their anger, members on Christmas Eve delivered stockings filled with coal to Oyster Bay’s town hall.

Todd Fabricant, the Cerro Wire Coalition’s chairman, said he applauds Venditto.

Taubman needs “to do what’s right for the surrounding community,” he said. “We feel that that property should be developed with concepts other than an 860,000-square-foot mall.

Taubman, however, says it can’t afford to give up.

The latest stats available reveal the publicly held mall giant reports it has spent $122.5 million as of Sept. 30. That price tag is up nearly a third from a year ago, according to documents filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

That’s more than Taubman would get if it gives up and sells the land.

“They have too much time, energy and money invested,” said Faith Hope Consolo, chairman of Prudential Douglas Elliman’s retail leasing and sales division. Taubman is “not going to give up. If it takes another 12 or 24 months, it doesn’t matter.”

The material on this site is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America and international conventions, and is the exclusive property of Weber Law Group LLP or any licensee. All rights reserved. © Weber Law Group LLP 2007. Site by Webline Designs.