Village, town and county officials lauded the opening of The Galleria at 5-9 Grace Ave. in Great Neck Plaza on Monday, describing it as an important step in creating vibrant and walkable downtown areas.
The Grace Avenue project is a roughly 42,000 square-foot development with four stories, with the top three floors featuring 30 apartments. The bottom level, meanwhile, includes 4,000 square feet of retail space for two storefronts.
Hooshang Nematzedeh, the head of Nemat Development Group and a Kings Point trustee, said construction of the Galleria lasted about 34 months and faced a unique challenge of not being able to close down streets.
But the result, Nematzadeh said, was “one of the finest buildings” in the immediate area.
“The building is a low-rise, not a high-rise, it’s not a huge number of apartments,” Nematzedeh said. “It is just enough numbers for this kind of a building to be able to provide all the services that we can to our tenants and the location, one block, two blocks to the train station, is unique.”
Nematzadeh also said they are currently negotiating with a bank and two other possible clients about occupying the retail space. As for occupancy, Nematzadeh said they are awaiting a final inspection by the Nassau County Fire Marshal next week.
Great Neck Plaza Mayor Jean Celender said this development is the first mixed-use development to be completed in Great Neck Plaza and fits into the larger goal of creating a transit-oriented village.
“We’ve enjoyed working closing with Hooshang [Nematzedeh], who we’ve had other buildings built [by], but this is the first of our transit-oriented development projects,” Celender said.
Nassau County Executive Laura Curran recalled going on a walking tour with Celender and seeing the building still under construction at the time.
She said that Nematzadeh did a “fantastic job” on a “truly beautiful” development and that the village is “leading the way” on transit-oriented development.
“I can’t say it enough: it is exactly what we need in Nassau County to keep our young people, to grow the tax base, to know that we’re serious about creating a business-friendly environment,” Curran said. “So congratulations, well done, very proud of you.”
Bosworth, who recalled watching the building “go up” and become “more and more beautiful,” echoed some of Curran’s sentiment.
“We talk about the importance of having vital downtowns and revitalizing main street – [we were] just having a conversation about that – and this goes so much to the importance of doing this,” Bosworth said.
Bosworth also thanked Celender for having “foresight” and Nematzadeh for his investment into his home community of Great Neck.
The site was home to three vacant stores and a vacant parking lot and law office when Grace Plaza was being mulled in 2014, according to project filings and applications for financial assistance. The project was first presented to trustees in August 2012.
The Nassau County Industrial Development Agency had approved 15 years worth of tax breaks for the building back in 2014, with counsel previously saying “the project could not get done” without tax relief.
