Interview with William Schaefer

William Schaefer- Lighthouse Development Group at Rexcorp

Q: Who came up with the initial idea for Project Lighthouse and when was it first proposed?

A: Initial idea came from Charles Wang, who is as you know the owner of the Islanders. Initially, the thought for Charles, you know he bought the team, which was probably going to leave Long Island and saved the team and kept it on Long Island and quickly realized that the economics of doing business in the coliseum weren’t so great, the team was losing money and continues to lose money today and he is doing everything he can to keep it here on Long Island. He feels very strongly that’s the right thing to do, it’s part of LI’s identity. So he went to the county and said, I’m a tenant in the building I don’t own the coliseum, you own the coliseum I can’t conduct business here the way I should, it should be a first class facility, please let’s fix the coliseum.

The county came back and said we really don’t have the money, the county has a long history of just making the budget every year, there is rarely a surplus. And the county said maybe there’s another way we can do this to fund the necessary improvements to the coliseum for the Islanders to conduct business and stay here on the Island. So the idea was hatched to do a development deal where the county would create a means of doing development on the 77 acres of asphalt that surround the coliseum, which don’t add to the tax base, don’t create any jobs, doesn’t solve any housing problems it’s just complete asphalt. Maybe we could put this to work for the benefit of the county and the residents- we’ll look at doing a development deal where some of the profits that are made on the development deal will fund the construction of the coliseum where Charles would be responsible for doing the work for the county. So that is sorta the trade-off. So in 2004 the Lighthouse project was launched. We did our first press release, the current plan that’s out there right now is the third master plan, the first plan was out there with a very large 80 story tower. Certainly got lots and lots of press out of that and a lot of enthusiasm. A couple years later the county decides that you have to RFP this job (2:45) so that was really the big delay so far, we had to go through an RFP process where it went out to other bidders and it came head to head with us and the mets and the mets wanted to develop the property and we had to go against them and win this RFP (2:49) of course we had the unfair advantage of having the islanders and at that time we decided to buy the Long Island Marriott (2:54) At that time also we became partners with Rexcorp, Rexcorp owns a lot of the property surrounding the coliseum (3:05) and has very vested interest in the success of this. We successfully won the RFP and we are the developer of choice for the county (3:15) and now we’ve joined ventures with Rexcorp and came up with our third master plan which is the master plan that is out there right now and we had just in 2007 in November submitted our application to the town of Hempstead who has the zoning authority (3:34) Its county property but the town of Hempstead has the zoning authority which could create some difficulty for us we don’t know yet until we get there (3:44) we submitted our application in November 2007 and just yesterday we got what is called a positive declaration of significant impact (3:54) meaning that the town has assumed the zoning authority and that we will have to go through what is called a state and volume mental quality review act, where we do an environmental impact statement (4:06) where we study every conceivable impact this project could have not just nassay county but the entire Long Island we’re talking about water, sewer, air quality, noise quality, impact of schools, impact to the tax base jobs created, every conceivable impact we have to study. (4:23) so, just yesterday that kicked off formally the legal process of it but we have been studying these impacts for over a year starting with traffic, traffic is probably the number one issue we have to deal with (4:36) So during the play-offs last year when the Islanders, made it in there we didn’t know they were gonna make it to the playoffs until the last game and we decided the next day to commence an unprecedented traffic study which is still going on today (4:53) So that’s the status. We hope that the town will work with us on expediting the secret process, they’re in control. (5:05) We work very hard to get all our documentation to them, we can control all of our consultants, all the studies, we have reached out to the people in the surrounding area over the last five years (5:20) we’ve been doing community outreach and in fact the third plan has a lot of input into it from the community, ah which we’ve had the benefit of quite a few years of not only public outreach but a lot of study to get to where we are right now (535) so we’re very comfortable going forward that we’re gonna hit every ---there’s not gonna be any issues with us expediting everything we need to do to go through the secret process. Rexcorp are professionals at doing that, they know the process cold and we certainly have the desire on both the ownership, Charles and Scott to do these studies as fast as possible. (6:00) so that we can get to this development.

Q: From where you stand right now, how long do you anticipate till actually breaking ground on this project?

A: Charles and the team were are committed to breaking ground on the coliseum, july 2009. (6:20) We hope to be through the secret process somewhere in early summer 2009 and we can actually start doing some of the work in the coliseum without any other approvals except for a work permit that would be the inner bowl, we would like to do that, but we would have to have some approvals before we take that risk and do something like that. (6:41)

Q: How would this benefit Long Islanders in general?

A: Well, Nassau county in particular has what has been identified as a flat line economy (6:58) and it’s not a place of growth as it was fifty years ago with the development that happened in Levittown and all around here- when you look out the window here at Rexcorp plaza, you can see all this development happened a long time ago and this was a wonderful place for young people to come because it was growing, (7:15) places that are growing create lots and lots of jobs, create lots and lots of opportunities, they’re exciting places to be. (7:24) This is the first suburb in the US and it’s the most mature, and it’s not so attractive for kids to come here like, I’ve grown up on LI and all my friends are gone, they a long time ago decided to live other places, like Rolley and Atlanta and Chattanooga, these places that are just growing, we’re not growing here and it’s scary, and its also because there’s no growth the tax burden has been put on all the homeowners and it makes it very very expensive to live here (8:01) it’s sort of a double edge sword its an old place and its an expensive place, and it’s not so attractive for young people and it’s a little scary to see the brain drain that’s going on so obviously when you do growth in an area as you know NYC never stops growing and its an exciting place once you start growing and creating opportunities and exciting places its going to help the economy through number 1, lessening the tax burden, creating lots and lots of jobs, creating new types of housing, not just single family homes (8:37) where kids would have to rent an apartment in the basement of a house but creating different housing products for young professionals to come here and start their lives on LI and hopefully stay there. (8:52) This will also obviously also keep the Long Islanders on Li and hopefully create a destination on Li that people will come and enjoy for many years. We hope that will be a real symbol of LI’s new growth. That’s to be determined and its really up to the town of Hempstead going through the secret process to make this happen.