The 16.6 acres at 75 Maxess Road were once slated for something entirely different: an Amazon warehouse. Amazon walked away from the deal. Today, that same parcel carries a special-use permit for 400 homes, a clubhouse, and 37,300 square feet of retail, approved by the Huntington Town Board on a 4-1 vote in April 2026. The reversal is the story, but not for the reason most headlines gave it. What actually changed at 75 Maxess Road is not that Melville got its first new-construction town center. It's that Melville got a mechanism, a formal, metered process that will decide, one 400-unit block at a time, how much new housing the corridor absorbs over the next decade. If you're comparing Melville against other Western Suffolk towns right now, that mechanism matters more than this one project.
What actually got approved
Melville Crossing, developed by Steel Equities under the entity Steel 75 Maxess LLC, is the first application filed under Huntington's new Melville Town Center Overlay District. The plan calls for seven four-story buildings and four three-story buildings holding 290 rental apartments, including 40 live-work units, plus 110 for-sale condominiums, for 400 residential units total. Ground-floor space includes three one-story retail buildings totaling roughly 37,300 square feet, a 6,300-square-foot clubhouse, a public plaza, a promenade, and a walking trail, according to documents filed with the town and reported by Huntington Now. The project carries an estimated price tag of $130 million.
Here's the quick breakdown of what's on the table:
| Component | Detail |
|---|---|
| Site | 16.6 acres at 75 Maxess Road, formerly office/industrial, previously proposed for an Amazon warehouse |
| Rental apartments | 290 units, including 40 live-work units |
| For-sale condominiums | 110 units |
| Retail/food/service space | approximately 37,300 sq ft |
| Clubhouse/amenity space | approximately 6,300 sq ft |
| Estimated cost | $130 million |
| Vote | Huntington Town Board, 4-1 in favor, April 2026 |
Supervisor Ed Smyth cast the deciding tone for the town's side of the debate. Councilwoman Brooke Lupinacci cast the lone no vote, saying she wanted more clarity before signing off, per reporting from Hoodline.
"I hope the plan for 75 Maxess Road is the first of several others over the next few years. It is the model for what development should be in Melville."
That's Smyth, quoted in the same report. Read plainly, it's a statement of intent about what comes after this one, not just an endorsement of this one.
The number that actually controls the next decade
Melville Crossing's 400 units aren't a one-off approval. They're the first tranche of a much larger allowance. When Huntington adopted the Melville Town Center Overlay District, it approved up to 1,500 residential units across the district, spread over several separate developments, with a pause after every 400 units so the town and school district can evaluate the impact before the next block is released. That structure comes directly from the Half Hollow Hills Central School District's own announcement to families about the zoning change.
That detail is the actual mechanism a buyer needs to understand. It means Melville's future housing supply is not a fixed number you can look up today. It's a series of gates, each one contingent on how the previous 400 units perform, get absorbed, and stress local infrastructure. Melville Crossing is gate one. Whether gates two, three, and four open on anything close to Smyth's timeline depends on how this first project plays out over the next several years, including construction timing, occupancy, and how the town and school district resolve the fiscal questions still unsettled today.
Who pays for the next 400 kids is still being negotiated
The school district isn't a bystander here. Half Hollow Hills has been working directly with the Town of Huntington and private developers to establish an agreement that would hold each development financially accountable for its actual student yield, meaning developers would owe the district money tied to enrollment impact if the number of new students exceeds a set threshold, according to the district's own announcement ahead of the March 2026 public hearing. As of that announcement, no agreement had been reached, though a meeting was scheduled to continue the discussion.
Separately, the project's economics include a tax question that hasn't been settled either. One commentary reported by Huntington Now argued that the application anticipates a lengthy payment-in-lieu-of-taxes arrangement that could total roughly $12 million over about two decades, and urged the town to weigh a smaller project or more retail before granting incentives. That figure is a local estimate from commentary rather than a confirmed town number, but it points to the real open question: how much of the new development's tax burden gets deferred, and for how long, is still being worked out through the site-plan process. That process now includes a formal environmental review. In April 2026, the Town of Huntington, acting as lead agency, issued a negative declaration finding the project unlikely to cause significant adverse environmental impact, per the New York State DEC's environmental notice bulletin. The site is already connected to the Southwest Sewer District, which removed one common infrastructure objection from the table. What remains outstanding is the fiscal question, not the environmental one.
Why a thin market makes this mechanism louder than it looks
Here's where the timing gets interesting for anyone pricing a purchase in Melville right now. Melville's home sales, by number of transactions, are a small market. In January 2026, only nine homes sold in Melville, down from 14 in the same month a year earlier, yet the median sale price for that handful of transactions came in at $1.2 million, up 36.8 percent year over year, with homes going pending in 24 days compared to 49 days the prior January. A market moving that fast on that few transactions is a market where a small number of deals can swing the median substantially in either direction.
Compare that to what's listed for sale today. As of July 2026, homes in Melville were listed at a median asking price of $999,000, working out to $476 per square foot, with a median 26 days on market, a slight decrease from the year before. That's a meaningful gap between what closed in January and what's being asked for now, on a market too thin to easily explain the difference as noise.
There are two honest readings. One is that January's number was skewed by a small sample catching a couple of higher-end closings. The other is that sellers listing homes today are pricing more conservatively, aware that Melville Crossing's 110 for-sale condominiums, plus whatever follows in the next tranche, represent new competing inventory that didn't exist as a factor a year ago. Either reading matters to a buyer, because it means Melville's pricing signal right now is unusually sensitive to exactly the kind of metered new supply that Melville Crossing represents. In a deeper market, 400 new units barely register. In a market selling single-digit homes some months, they're a real variable.
What this means if you're comparing Melville to other towns
None of this changes what a home in Melville is worth this week. Steel Equities still has to file a detailed site plan and clear additional review before construction, leasing, or condo closings can happen, and the school funding and tax abatement questions remain unresolved. What it does change is how you should read Melville's numbers against a neighboring town that isn't running a 1,500-unit zoning experiment in its commercial core.
A few things worth tracking if you're weighing Melville specifically:
- Whether the town and Half Hollow Hills reach a tuition-equivalent agreement before the next 400-unit tranche is proposed, since that outcome will signal how much leverage the school district actually has going forward.
- The terms of any PILOT agreement Steel Equities receives, since that determines how quickly the new development contributes to the tax base residents are counting on.
- Whether Melville Crossing's for-sale condominiums, once they hit the market, land closer to today's $999,000 asking median or January's $1.2 million sold figure, since that will tell you which reading of the current gap was correct.
A quick FAQ
Will Melville Crossing lower home prices in Melville? Not directly, and not soon. The 110 condominium units still need a filed site plan and further review before they can be built or sold, and 400 units against Melville's existing single-family housing stock is a modest addition on its own. The more relevant question is what happens if the town approves additional 400-unit tranches over time, since that's a cumulative effect rather than a one-time one.
Is Melville Crossing the only project planned for this area? It's the first application under the Melville Town Center Overlay District, and the zoning allows for up to 1,500 units total across multiple developments. Supervisor Smyth has publicly said he expects more proposals to follow.
When does construction start? As of the April 2026 approval, Steel Equities still needed to file a detailed site plan and complete environmental review steps before building permits could be issued. No construction start date has been announced.
If you're trying to figure out what a specific street or section of Melville is actually worth against this backdrop, that's a conversation worth having with someone who tracks both the closings and the zoning calendar. The Robyn Schatz team can walk you through what's on the table right now and what it's likely to mean for your particular home or search. Get Your Free Home Valuation and let's talk through the numbers that matter for your situation.
