80 Baylis Road in Melville, New York — Courtesy: JLL
By Joshua Burd
JLL’s Morristown-based investment sales team is marketing another potential redevelopment site at an aging office property, this time in the Long Island community of Melville.
According to the brokerage team, the nearly 11-acre parcel at 80 Baylis Road is home to a vacant 184,795-square-foot office building “but is ripe for redevelopment” as new apartments or an industrial facility. The property is zoned for light industry, permitting as-of-right
development of up to 141,788 square feet of warehouse space, JLL said, while also noting that it sits within a recently approved overlay district that allows for up to 2,500 new multifamily housing units and mixed-use development, positioning it for a project aligned with the town’s vision for a more walkable, economically vibrant Melville.
The hamlet, part of the municipality of Huntington, is less than a one-hour drive to Manhattan. Users at the Baylis Road site have quick access to Route 110, Interstate 495, the Northern State Parkway and Route 24.
“Strategically positioned for Melville’s urban transformation, 80 Baylis offers a rare opportunity to develop a landmark property in this thriving market,” JLL wrote, adding that residents within a three-mile radius have an average household income of $195,969 annually.
In an alternate version of its offering materials, the firm said the site “provides an investor with the rare opportunity to development a Class A industrial warehouse facility with direct access to I-495 in the high-barrier-to-entry and supply-constrained Long Island industrial market.”
JLL’s Jose Cruz, Ryan Robertson, Nicholas Stefans and Jason Lundy are spearheading the offering with analytics support from Conor Walsh and Pranav Patel, financing advisory from Peter Rotchford and Gerard Quinn and leasing services from Tom Dimicelli. They noted that the fully vacant property “offers unencumbered redevelopment potential, streamlining the process from site plan approval to a shovel-ready position, minimizing preconstruction delays.”
What’s more, Long Island’s apartment market has seen a 15.6 percent average market rent increase and an average vacancy rate of 4.7 percent from 2020 to 2024, JLL said. On the industrial side, Long Island has a mere 289,000 square feet of new industrial space under construction, a mark that’s 89 percent below peak levels in spring 2023, plus an average vacancy rate of 3.8 percent over the last five years.
