Mastic Beach Ambulance’s $9.5M HQ to open in fall, officials say

Brookhaven Town officials said they expect construction of the $9.5 million Mastic Beach Ambulance Company headquarters to be completed this fall.

Town officials toured the unfinished 18,000-square-foot facility earlier this month and said the project is moving along. Officials originally said construction would be finished in July or August.

“What has been more than a decade in the making for the members of the Mastic Beach Ambulance Company is coming together beautifully,” Brookhaven Town Councilman Dan Panico, who represents the district, said in a news release.

In 2016, town board members approved an $11 million bond resolution to finance the building.

But construction, engineering and land purchase costs came in at $9.5 million, 20 percent of which was part of a contingency plan required by the New York State comptroller, officials said.

“This construction is moving very well and the men and women of the Mastic Beach Ambulance Company will soon have a new headquarters that will help them do their job more efficiently,” Brookhaven Town Supervisor Edward P. Romaine said in a statement.

Officials projected the bond to increase residential property taxes within the ambulance district between $89.25 and $97.14 per year.

The new building will house five drive-through vehicle bays, accommodate up to 15 vehicles, increase response time, and provide better equipment and maintenance operations, officials said. The facility, at the intersection of Neighborhood Road and Diana Drive, will include training rooms and help volunteer members serve Mastic Beach residents more efficiently, officials said.

The headquarters property had been home to a long-vacant supermarket, which became a source of blight, officials said.

Ambulance company officials said they outgrew their existing, roughly 3,500-square-foot facility on Whittier Drive years ago.

The company responded to roughly 2,500 emergency calls in 2015.