Indoor adventure park proposed at old supermarket in Dix Hills

A new tenant may be in the works for the space that a Pathmark supermarket used to occupy on a East Jericho Turnpike corner in Dix Hills.

Bedford, Texas-based Urban Air Adventure Park is seeking to open an indoor adventure park in the Dix Hills Plaza shopping center located at the corner of Old Country Road and East Jericho Turnpike, but first town officials need to amend town code to allow such a facility.

A public hearing has been scheduled for June 16 to consider revising town code to allow for new types of indoor commercial recreational facilities in the neighborhood business district zoning category.

Town code currently has restrictions on the location of game centers and places of recreation, a throwback to when game arcades were the most popular use and thought to contribute to school vagrancy. Any amendments would redefine commercial places of recreation, including fitness centers, health clubs, indoor pools, gymnastics centers and indoor adventure parks.

“We want to expand economic opportunities for businesses to open, provide jobs and thrive in our town and part of that concept is the filling of vacant commercial space,” town Supervisor Chad Lupinacci said. “The current code does not allow amusement centers in the area sought, despite it being located on a major commercial thoroughfare in the town.”

Urban Air Adventure Park creates indoor playgrounds for children and is known for its trampolines. They have dozens of locations across the world, including in Lake Grove and Brooklyn. Company officials did not comment on the Dix Hills proposal.

The Pathmark space has been empty since 2015 following the bankruptcy filing of its parent company The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co.

Joe Serrano, co-owner of Spuntino, an Italian restaurant in the shopping center, said the eatery has built a pool of regular patrons over the 14 years he has been in business there. But business has declined since the supermarket closed. He said he lost customers because many of them were supermarket employees and drivers making deliveries to Pathmark. 

“We did lose all that traffic that used to come in here, traffic that brought people that normally wouldn’t come into the area or who wouldn’t normally come into the shopping center," Serrano said. "So the supermarket was really good for exposure and bringing in potential customers.”  

Lupinacci said it’s a priority to fill vacant, already built commercial spaces with reasonably appropriate uses to boost business for the other shopping center tenants and to create employment opportunities,  

Serrano agreed and is hopeful about getting a new neighbor.

“It’s great something is going to be coming into a vacant space,” Serrano said. “It will bring people in and bring life back into the shopping center, having something there rather than having a big empty space, we’d rather have something there.”

The public hearing is scheduled for 2 p.m. June 16 during the regular town board meeting.