Retail Roundup: Strikeforce Sports will move to larger LI facility
In airsoft gaming at Strikeforce Sports in Deer Park, teams use rifles to shoot plastic pellets at each other and complete challenges. Credit: Newsday / Thomas A. Ferrara
StrikeForce Sports plans to make a move.
The airsoft gaming facility will be relocating to Farmingdale from Deer Park, where it opened 10 years ago, owner Stanley Milov said.
StrikeForce is currently located at 450 B Commack Rd. in Deer Park. A second facility opened in Pennsville, New Jersey, in May 2018.
The relocation on Long Island is necessary because “the lease is up, and the landlord wants too much money, so we have to find a new space,” Milov said.
In airsoft gaming, teams of people use rifles to shoot plastic pellets at each other and complete challenges.
“It’s kind of like paint ball, but no mess,” Milov said.
The timing of the Long Island move will depend on getting approval for the Farmingdale project from Babylon Town. The town’s planning board granted approval for interior alterations of the Farmingdale building on Aug. 12, spokesman Dan Schaefer said. Also, set for Sept. 19 is a town zoning board of appeals hearing on a request for a special exception permit for a “place of amusement” and to reduce off-street parking from 341 to 109 parking spaces, he said.
StrikeForce Sports, an indoor airsoft gaming facility in Deer Park, will be moving to Farmingdale once Babylon Town gives its OK. Credit: Newsday / Thomas A. Ferrara
The cost of converting the warehouse to an airsoft gaming facility is estimated to be between $400,000 and $500,000, Milov said.
The new Farmingdale facility would be in leased space in a former warehouse in the rear of a building that it would share with Waldner's Business Environments Inc., a furniture dealership at 125 Broadhollow Rd.
StrikeForce in Farmingdale would occupy 40,000 square feet and include a larger “play field” for airsoft gaming — 28,000 square feet compared to about 24,000 square feet in the current facility.
“It’s a better layout, more organized,” Milov said.
StrikeForce has a lounge and a pro shop, which sells electric-, gas- and air-powered airsoft guns and accessories.
Players also can rent equipment from the field counter.
Retail Roundup is a column about major retail news on Long Island — store openings, closings, expansions, acquisitions, etc. — that is published online and in the Monday paper. To read more of these columns, click here. If you have news to share, please send an email to Newsday reporter Tory N. Parrish at tory.parrish@newsday.com.
Tory N. Parrish covers retail and small business for Newsday. She has worked at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Observer-Dispatch in Utica, N.Y.
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