A Woodmere realty firm is planning to make a new home in a Floral Park office building that’s been vacant for almost a year.
Abro Management LLC presented plans before the village Board Tuesday night to renovate 58 S. Tyson Ave., which it says will better accommodate its growing work force.
“I think you’ll be very pleased, once we make the submissions with the (Architectural Review Board), as far as a very pleasing-looking office building, and well-maintained by the tenant who occupies the premises,” Floral Park-based architect Mario Vergara told the board.
The 35-year-old family-owned company plans to expand the second floor, update the facade and replace the windows on the former Water Authority of Western Nassau County headquarters.
It will also re-stripe the parking lot and add a gym, locker rooms, cafeteria and pantry for its 30 employees, Vergara said.
Abro owns the building and will share first-floor space with the concrete company that currently operates there, Vergara said. It will also open some second-floor office space to a new tenant.
Floral Park’s proximity to the Long Island Rail Road and major highways was a “big factor” in Abro’s decision to relocate from its Woodmere headquarters to Floral Park, owner Richard Scharf said.
The company needs a larger space to house the six to 10 new employees it will soon hire, Vergara said.
Trustee Lynn Pombonyo noted the building is adjacent to the John Lewis Childs School, an elementary school that’s had several problems with parking.
But Abro’s lot will have 66 spaces, leaving at least 30 after all the building’s employees park there, Vergara said.
It’s also next to the Flowerview Gardens Co-Op, a residential building that’s made efforts to clean up the area, Mayor Thomas Tweedy said.
Elizabeth LaManna, a member of the co-op board, asked Scharf to ensure building tenants keep the property clean and that construction crews operate within normal hours.
Scharf said he’d fulfill both requests.
Renovation plans would also replace the fence the building shares with Flowerview Gardens, he said.
LaManna said she was glad the building would have a long-term occupant to help further improve a property that’s become run down over the years.
“I think it’s great that we are going to have somebody that is there all the time, that is going to beautify the area,” she said.
