An artist rendering of the Meadows at Yaphank,

By CARL MACGOWAN  carl.macgowan@newsday.com

State officials have awarded a $1.5 million economic development grant to a Yaphank multiuse development to be built at the site of the shuttered Parr Meadows racetrack.

The grant — which will help fund construction of a boulevard, a hotel and a sewage treatment plant at the Meadows at Yaphank residential and retail complex — was one of 97 Long Island projects awarded state aid worth $82 million last week.

Construction on the project’s first phase — including 240 luxury apartments — began earlier this year and is expected to be completed in 2016, a spokesman for the developer said.

The grant to the Meadows at Yaphank was tied for the sixth-largest aid package for Long Island projects. The largest allocation, in dollars, was $4.7 million for a commercial building at the Wyandanch Rising project in Babylon Town.

More than $700 million was distributed to projects statewide based on proposals developed by 10 regional economic development councils.

Kevin Law, president of the Long Island Association business group and co-vice chairman of the Long Island Regional Economic Development Council, said in a statement the Meadows will be “a great mixed-use project that could accommodate housing needs of researchers and other employees at Brookhaven National Laboratory.”

When it is completed, the $231 million Meadows development is expected to have 850 housing units and 327,000 square feet of retail space on 322 acres at the northwest corner of the Long Island Expressway and William Floyd Parkway.

Brian Ferruggiari, a spokesman for the project’s Yonkers-based developer, AVR Realty and Rose-Breslin Associates, said the Meadows would have a different look than many Long Island developments, which often erect buffers between homes and businesses. He said the Meadows will have walkways between its residential and retail sections to encourage residents to shop at those stores.

“This project does not have those buffers,” Ferruggiari said. “In fact, it has connections that make the project very walkable.”

The 120-suite hotel, sewage treatment plant and boulevard are slated to be part of the development’s second phase, Ferruggiari said. He said it was unclear when second phase construction would begin.

http://www.meadowsatyaphank.com/images/rendering4_lrg.jpg