Rechler still seeks to build on opportunities

Daily Point

Developer sees a need for strong political leadership

Long Island developer Scott Rechler has been building housing — in Raleigh, Tampa, Denver, Phoenix, Dallas and Greenville, South Carolina. It’s easier — and cheaper — to build there than it is here, he says.

But he hasn’t given up on Long Island.

RXR’s Rechler — who sat down this week with The Point to talk about everything from real estate to transit to the broader economy — has his eye on continuing to develop Garvies Point, RXR’s housing project in Glen Cove, and adding housing in downtown Riverhead and in the Village of Hempstead, where he has been trying to build for years.

“We’re the closest we’ve ever been,” Rechler said of the potential for an RXR housing project in Hempstead Village.

Rechler also has a stake in the nearby Nassau Hub, which he has been trying to develop for decades. RXR is working with Las Vegas Sands on its efforts to bring a casino resort — or, as a plan B, a mixed-use development that includes housing — to the Hub.

Rechler said building housing on the Island — even with the lengthy and costly process involved — makes sense, especially because of the increased interdependency between the Island and New York City. The traditional model, where people live on Long Island and work in New York City, is now more complex; some New York City companies are establishing satellite offices on the Island, allowing more folks to live in the city and work on Long Island.

But Rechler doesn’t mince words about the risks that remain in real estate and in the broader economy. He dismisses talk of a “soft landing” from inflation, saying that the COVID-19 pandemic may have “elongated” the cycle — leading to a potential downturn, or even a recession, to come later than initially expected. He said he thinks it could arrive sometime next year.

“Eventually, it has to hit,” Rechler said. “The question is how deep it’s going to be.”

But Rechler said that expectation isn’t stopping him from starting new projects or looking for his next moves.

“Even with a couple of years of slowness in the cycle, you’d be delivering the product when you’re coming out of the downturn,” he said. “You’d be ready to open at the right time.”

Rechler isn’t giving up on the New York City office market, either. One particular focus: Midtown East and, specifically, the area around the Long Island Rail Road’s new terminal at Grand Central Madison.

“Companies will want to locate there,” Rechler said. “These are the submarkets with the greatest demand right now.”

But Rechler said he recognizes that the rise of hybrid work and a changing office market come with significant challenges, leaving some neighborhoods in New York City very different than they were before the pandemic. Even Rechler — who spoke with The Point at his office in Rockefeller Plaza — works from home on Fridays.

Addressing those challenges — and making areas like the one around Grand Central Madison successful — only happens with the right incentives and the right leadership at all levels of government, Rechler said.

“There’s a void of leadership right now,” Rechler said of state and local governments. “This is a moment when we badly need strong leadership. When you have good leadership, you can capitalize on those opportunities.”

— Randi F. Marshall randi.marshall@newsday.com

Pencil Point

Make America scrape again

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Final Point

Remembering the postwar suburban boom

Scott Rechler is only one of many developers — and one of many more Long Island residents — grappling with uncertainty created by the pandemic, a challenging economy, and a volatile political scene.

That sense of uneasiness stands in stark contrast to an earlier time in Long Island’s development — specifically, back in 1953 when Newsday’s editorial board took stock of the region in an Aug. 3 piece called “LI — ‘A Classy Mass’.“

The jumping-off point was an issue of Fortune magazine that painted a rosy picture of postwar America including rising incomes, rising purchasing power, increasing productivity, more freedom of movement, and, as Fortune put it, “the rise of a great new moneyed middle class, growing larger, wealthier, more uniform, and yet more various.”

“What does this have to do with us? Plenty,” said Newsday’s board, which saw Long Island as the beneficiary of Americans’ new mobility.

“Now, with all the wealth, people are leaving the farms and the central parts of cities even faster,” the board wrote. “The rush is to the suburbs, which is described as ‘the commuting-residential area, some in central cities, some in small towns, that consist mainly of one-family homes.’ That’s Long Island.”

The board noted that where three of five Americans lived on farms in 1929, three of five were living in the suburbs by 1953. Suburban population growth was outpacing national population growth, with the jury out on whether people were moving to the suburbs to have children or moving to the suburbs because they already had children and wanted to raise them there.

The growing numbers of suburbanites had profound implications.

“No longer does the city-dweller set the styles,” the board quoted from Fortune’s piece. “It is the suburbanite who starts mass fashion — for children, hardtops, culottes, dungarees, vodka martinis, outdoor barbecues, functional furniture, picture windows and costume jewelry.”

Newsday’s editorial board clearly reveled in this newfound cultural clout and influence.

“Best of all is that no change is in sight,” the board wrote. “The experts predict we will keep on getting wealthier, production will continue to climb faster than the skyrocketing birthrate, and the luxuries of life will soon become everyday necessities.

“Make you feel good? It does us.”

Seventy years later, that boisterous pride and boundless optimism is a sobering reminder that nothing lasts forever. Which is in a way comfort for our own uncertain times.

— Michael Dobie michael.dobie@newsday.com, Amanda Fiscina-Wells amanda.fiscina-wells@newsday.com