Towns on the rebound or decline (Brookhaven, Islip: hotel, townhouses, neighborhood)

[John9l0]

Originally Posted by rprprprp

I have to respectfully disagree with the idea that Patchogue is going to rebound too much. I do agree that downtown has been getting cleaned up. The new restaurants are great (especially like Perabell) but......

1) Go 1/4 mile east of the library and not much has changed--Burlington Coat factory is not the anchor to a prosperous downtown
2) I dont think all of these condos are necessarily the answer--the one on Waverly between main street and sunrise looks onto a scenic cellphone tower--the complex just built on River is still unnoccupied as far as i can tell.
2) Patchogue is still very far from the city--there are daily commuters but it is a less than desirable trip ( I know I did it for 2 years).
3) Most importantly with the school budget being rejected it will be hard to attract upscale young families. Why come to Patchogue with all its budget discord?
4) By being tied to Medford the PM school district is much less desirable--if only it was Patchogue-Bluepoint I would be much more hopeful

I understand if people disagree and I am not suggesting Patchogue doesnt have its benefits I just think for the aforementioned reasons the rebound of Patchogue may not be as high as some think

What's so bad about Medford?

[Donna-501]

I have to say I haven't been on LI in years but when I was there Bay Shore was a little worse than horrible (main st area). I am glad to here that because when I was a little girl it use to be a nice town.

[okaydorothy]

Originally Posted by OhBeeHave

I guess we are going to have to wait and see. Bayshore's turnaround has been close to what? 20? years in the works. You've given some good reasons why it might not be as successful (ie distance to NYC) but as far as schools go, an infusion of young blood, concerned parents voting for budgets and demanding programs you might have the start of the schools improving as well.

I also think that they cannot redo the whole village in one fell swoop. I do agree with the townhouses on Waverly ; remember they are facing the town dump!! I remember looking at that property 8 or so years ago ; it was 4 acres and asking $400,000.

But they are doing a nice, slow job on the village. It takes time to turn around what was a huge eyesore and make it nice again. They have knocked down the old national windows store on Montauk Highways also and I believe they are building move condos or so.

it will take time. it wont be the Hamptons, but it has hope to be a nice safe village.

d

[lilibrarian]

Do you think Patchogue is a decent bet for a family with young kids? I had written it off, but man, my husband and I could get so much more for our money than in Sayville or Bayport-Bluepoint. I'm only poking around mls at this point, but there seem to be a number of lovely homes in the 300-375k range. I'm focusing on the village and south of Montauk. Is that the way to go?

My main concern is the school system. Any thoughts or opinions welcome.

[fyrisle]

lilibrarian - Some of the nicer areas of Patchogue are north of Montauk (and those areas also don't flood when hurricanes arrive). One of the nicest neighborhoods is off of Roe Boulevard just east of the Mill Pond. Some of the blocks west of the Mill Pond close to Roe Boulevard are rather nice too.

[okaydorothy]

Yees, that is the better area ; off Roe blvd which is south of sunrise, north of montauk, west of 112.

But dont forget also ; on the west side of patchogue there is a very nice area called Democratic Hill ; its west of Waverly, east of Nichols, north and south of Montauk and Defiately south of Sunrise. Its a very nice area full of dead ends, and nice people living there.

d

[fotoverdi]

We have lived in Patchogue since 1983 and had all three of our children go through the school system, utilizing, Patchogue Medford Elementary School, Saxton School, South Ocean Middle School and Pat-Med High School with our youngest finishing two years ago. Although I felt they got a good education, things were changing in the later years with imigrants, smoking, drugs, and bomb threats being called in. That is not to say, I wouldn't send a child there now, as I think that is in a lot of school districts. The teachers were very good and we became friends with many of them. We have beenwaiting for Patchogue to turn around since 1983. We do live in the so-called nice area off Roe Blvd. near St. Joseph's College. We have no complaints with our neighborhood per se. It is more problems with the town. I have seen some positive changes, but they are few and far between. The addition of the Brichouse, Bobbique's, PeraBell and the Steak House if it ever opens, are good new additions. The Theatre is also good as well as, the auction houses. However, dollar stores, pawn shops, cheap prom clothing stores, the district courthouse, Burlington Coat Factory, and the numerous dirty nail salons, etc. etc., add nothing to the value of the shopping districts. I did love the new condos, however, I am beginning to feel that they are going condo crazy. Now, every piece of property that is available is becoming condo complexes. I did utilize the pool every single summer for swimming lessons, but have had numerous conversations on why we can't have chairs to sit upon like any other public pool rather than 40 year old stadium seating???? The closing of some of the boarding houses was a wonderful thing as they made the town horrible. I have no clue why nothing is ever done for 30 years east of the 112 section of Patchogue. The horrible movie theatre area with it's True Value Hardware mess that still sits empty. And, as far as voting for the school budget, I speak to everyone I see and we seem to have the highest property taxes of anyone I have met living here. I alone pay close to $15,000 a year, which in my estimation is nuts! My doctor who lives in Bayport pays $7,000. I do not by any means have a huge lot of property. I am 60' wide and go down to 40' in the back by 240' deep. I realize there was a lot of opposition a few years back with the riverfront project, that would have brought to Patchogue an area similar to San Antonio with restaurants, music, parks, boat rides, etc. etc., but I still felt it would have done wonders to revitalize this town. We seem to do nothing to save our historic landmarks as other towns do. There is no uniting of storefronts or signs, although they tell you that they did unify the signs allowing only higher class wooden signs as we were told. Now, I see wooden make shift signs being put up. Just my two cents, but as a longtime resident, I too, wonder just how much "revitalization" we will see and on what timetable it will be.

[Johninwestbury]

I think the towns of Bay Shore and Patchogue have had the greatest improvements. I was in Patchogue the other day, and while there were illegals further east, the town itself is looking better. Bay Shore's downtown is actually quite nice....I never thought I'd see the day downtown Bay Shore would look better than Post ave.
Speaking of which takes me to the two towns on the decline, the village of Westbury, which has been looking more and more like Prospect Ave in New Cassel, with gangs, illegals, and a general not so nice look. Riverhead has those same problems, but is even worse, since most of the downtown is actually vacant. I saw this coming when Tanger was built. Everybody's going up by 58 now.

[lilibrarian]

Thanks for the opinions. A number of the house I was interested in were in that area. Also around Bay Ave. and Carman St. How's that?

We are really in the information gathering, should we stay or should we go phase. It's all food for thought.

[fyrisle]

A portion of the area off Bay Avenue closest to the train tracks is not that nice. Make sure you visit the entire neighborhood first to see if you are comfortable there.