Hotel opens in historic Huntington Old Town Hall

Huntington’s historic new resort is open for small business.

And immediately after a long time of setbacks around permits and approvals, the historic but lengthy-vacant City Hall on Most important Street — web-site of the new Hampton Inn & Suites by Hilton — will yet again be a location to fulfill, greet, and now, snooze.

Commack native George Tsunis, who was named United States Ambassador to Greece in March, produced the residence. Thursday’s official opening of the hotel ended an odyssey that started again in 2013.

“This was constantly 1 of my preferred properties and it saddened me when it fell into disrepair and was abandoned for nearly two decades,” reported Tsunis, who lives in Lloyd Harbor but is set to fly to Greece on Friday to start off his ambassadorship. “Huntington actually required a hotel, and what much better way than to repurpose this historic, magnificently lovely city hall creating into a resort, revitalize the making and provide an financial centre for Huntington village for a long time to arrive.”

On Thursday, officers, area historians and customers of the local community attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the 81-room hotel in the Previous City Corridor Historic District.

“This is a great illustration of adaptive reuse,” mentioned Huntington City Historian Robert Hughes of the restored framework. “It’s all about recycling structures. In its place of tearing them down you can repurpose them for something else.”

Town Supervisor Ed Smyth reported the hotel is a superb addition to the town.

“It’s an asset to the city that seems to be amazing.” Smyth stated. “The developer retained the historic mother nature of the creating even though at the very same time modernizing and producing it a quite functional house.”

In 2013 the city preparing board gave approval to create a 55-room boutique lodge on the internet site at 227 Primary St., using the town hall making, which is detailed on the Nationwide Sign up of Historic Sites. The earlier developer never ever obtained the important creating permits before a 5-year deadline expired. The setting up board in February 2018 extended conditional acceptance for the prepare till March 2023.

Tsunis stepped in and went into deal to get the setting up from the former owner in 2019.

The Previous Town Corridor ceased operation as municipal offices in 1979. It was the first town corridor that served Huntington’s 18,000 people when it was constructed in 1910.

The repurposed constructing consists of a two-and-a-fifty percent ground foyer that preserves the first town hall and a new wing created for the guest rooms. 

Amongst these at the ceremony was former Sen. Alfonse D’Amato who mused about Tsunis functioning for him quite a few yrs in the past. Tsunis skipped it since he bought trapped in visitors coming from Manhattan.

But Tsunis was capable to love some festivities. County Govt Steve Bellone offered him with a wood desk name plate engraved with his name and ambassador title, and a clock with the Suffolk County seal.

“It’s a good day,” Tsunis reported.