As I sit to type, I am ending my last day as the executive director of the Greater Patchogue Chamber of Commerce, a position I have held for a little more than 11 years.

Tomorrow, I move into a new office just a few blocks , as I take the same title for the Village of Patchogue Business Improvement District and special projects manager for the village, a position previously held by Dennis Smith. Unquestionably a tough act to follow, but my previous position with the chamber (and Dennis’s decade-long mentorship) sets me up well to continue to serve in a position dedicated to making my hometown Patchogue shine, and assisting the small-business owners who are a large part of what makes my hometown unique and special.

As I transition to my new role, it does make me reflect on the tremendous growth, and related attention, Patchogue has received over the past 20-plus years. Keep in mind, I grew up in Patchogue in the late 1970s and through the ‘80s and ‘90s. The attention we received then... was a lack of one. There was stagnation. What was once considered a leading outdoor retail district on Long Island, like many other downtowns, was losing out to the development of shopping malls, and worse... strip malls. The Patchogue Theatre, then a movie house, closed. Vacancies outnumbered operating storefronts.

Of course, what started to happen next is well documented and talked about. Thanks to a unique community partnership between residents and business owners, local officials and regional developers, many were starting to see the charm of Patchogue that reached back to when Patchogue was a well-known resort on the South Shore.

This was just as the 19th turned into the 20th century. Fast-forward as the 20th century became the 21st, and Patchogue is starting to get notoriety as a leading community reinventing its downtown into a lively recreational district of restaurants, music venues and New Age retail and services.

The Patchogue Theatre reopened as a performing arts center. Parking spots that remained empty daily, were now hard to come by, daily. Suddenly, every other downtown was using Patchogue as a model for positive “smart growth/mixed use” redevelopment, mixing new residential opportunities with refurbished commercial options. Patchogue was reborn.

As I started my position as chamber ED in 2011, Patchogue was well re-established as a vibrant downtown and desired place to live. While many businesses have come and gone, even since then, what remains constant is Patchogue is still a desired, popular, and exciting community to live, work and play.

If anything has changed since the early 2000s, it’s that many other downtown districts have caught up to us. Today, Patchogue is certainly not alone as a successful, redeveloped business district. So where do we go from here?

Helping answer that question is what most excites me about taking on my new role. As I start to work for the Village of Patchogue, still led by our visionary mayor Paul Pontieri, I will have the opportunity to help move forward some very exciting new developmental projects, many already approved, many just beginning the planning process.

I am excited as I begin this new professional chapter. I get a sense Patchogue is about to enter a new phase of once again leading Long Island as a unique, forward-moving community that includes a vital commercial district at its heart, surrounded by an active and engaged citizenry. That’s been a key ingredient to Patchogue’s success that should never be taken for granted.

A difference I have noticed recently, as we enter this new phase, has been some reactions to some of these new developments coming forward. In the late ‘90s, a time when I served as Patchogue Village trustee, residents were near unanimous in any new development the community engaged in. Which made sense—we were basically at the bottom; anything new was welcomed with open arms. Those looking to invest in development on Long Island were attracted to this refreshing, anti-NIMBYism that seemed to exist here. The only exception to this pre-2020 was around 2008, when the community was a bit divided on the reconfigured proposal known as New Village. 

Due to the economic downturn of that year, some of the cool “bells and whistles” everyone loved about the original proposal (condos with the apartments; a hotel as the center of the project) became infeasible. Still, the majority of the community seemed to accept the reconfigured proposal when they elected leaders who supported it. Thank goodness they did! Can anyone imagine what downtown Patchogue would be without New Village today? 

So, it is with that thought I start my next phase. Patchogue would not be where it is today without the full cooperation and unity from residents, business leaders and local officials alike. That community partnership needs to remain if our next phase will be as successful as our last phase has been. Community leaders must keep the best interests of the residents at large at the forefront; residents must be engaged and open-minded to new developments as they come forward. Ironically, a proposed hotel may be the next new development project that may somewhat divide our community partnership. There are no shortages of opinions about the project, to be sure. 

While we were ready to embrace a hotel in the past, lately I hear some who say “we have developed enough... no more new developments please.”  I get it, development fatigue has set in for some, but let’s not forget the last time we stopped developing and became stagnant circa 1980. I think we all agree that it would be devastating if we did. 

I like to compare maintaining a community to not unlike maintaining a house. I think, both with a community and a home, we have a vision of what it looks like complete, done, exactly where you want to be. Of course, others who share the house or community alike may have a different “ideal” and it usually takes negotiating, and sometimes readjusting your ideal to fit others to progress. Either way, the truth is, a house or a community alike, you are never done fixing it. There is always something to improve, and it usually requires something new and different to remain vibrant and desirable. 

Anyway, Terry Tuthill, the publisher of the Long Island Advance and one of my previous bosses as a member of the Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors (and a great friend to me), asked me to put down my thoughts on Patchogue as I make this change into the role I will be playing in the community. Consider the above those thoughts.

One thing, though, will not change. I invite anyone in this community to always reach me about anything Patchogue.  Obviously, I can talk about Patchogue all day!