Village of Roslyn trustees on Tuesday approved a special-use permit application for a landlord seeking to renovate a 1,700 square-foot space for a national test preparation and tutoring service seeking to open a location within a shopping center at 1500 Old Northern Boulevard.
The facility, for C2 Education learning centers, would feature two business areas, five cubicles, a testing area and a receptionist’s desk, said Wayne Edwards, attorney for applicant MRL Realty on behalf of the firm Sahn, Ward Coschignano & Baker, PLLC.
“This is a great area because there’s competition in Roslyn and the other Long Island school districts between students trying to get into the top schools,” he said. “You need better grades to get into the top schools and everybody wants their kid to get into the top schools, this is the perfect place for them.”
C2 has 110 locations across the country and several on Long Island, Edwards said, and offers one-on-one standardized test preparation as well as general academic tutoring.
The location will accommodate one full-time employee and four part-time employees and be open from 12:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday. During the summer, it will be open from Monday to Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Edwards said.
There would be no parking issues, as there typically are with businesses located along Old Northern Boulevard, because parents would be required to drop off their children at the facility, Edwards said.
“I would have more of an issue with it if it was right in the downtown area, but because it’s closer to the highway and you’d see it when you drive by and you’re not lingering or having a lot of people around the area,” Village of Roslyn Mayor John Durkin said.
Trustee Craig Westergard questioned why C2 would want to open a location within a storefront typically approved within the village for retail use, but Edwards replied that the company seeks retail stores for future locations and the landlord wanted to vary the different uses within the shopping center.
“The landlord’s responsible for his own mix, and I guess he felt this would be the right mix,” Edwards said. “The problem is retail tenants are hard to come by. You’d typically get restaurants and other services, nail salons. How many hairstylists can you have in a shopping center? So you alternate.”
In other developments:
• The board rescheduled the date of its March meeting from Tuesday, March 17, to Wednesday, March 18 at 8 p.m. March 18 is also the date of the village’s election.
The board also designated the Nathan Stern Community Room as its location for the election, which will take place from noon to 9 p.m.
Vestra Chianese, Gerald Murray, Else Cavaliere, Joanna Canadeo and Louis Canadeo were appointed election inspectors.
