Southampton Projects Stalled: Lobster Inn, Randy's, Crosswalks

The Town of Southampton continues to be unable to process large civic projects for the public good in a timely fashion. In other towns on the East End, such things go through the system in months. In Southampton it can take years.

Here are four projects.

Over a year ago, a portion of the former Lobster Grille Inn in Shinnecock Hills was arranged to be preserved as open space never to be built upon, and other parts to be a dock, a boating facility, a shellfish hatchery and maybe a small restaurant. The seller thought they had a deal with the Town. Here it is more than a year later and the project is not moving. According to The Southampton Press, the owner is unsure if this will go ahead and is looking elsewhere for a purchaser.

A year ago, some residents nearby to the former, but now closed, Randy’s Barber Shop on the corner of Hillcrest Street and North Sea Road in Southampton got together to restore it, not as a barber shop but as an open-to-the-public African-American museum in the town. It had been a beloved place, a center for that community with many stories to tell since opening during the 1940s. So last year, public-spirited citizens worked to get funding for this relatively modest project. Promises were made. But nothing’s been done yet.

It seemed a three-way deal was close to being struck more than a year ago to arrange for a former ferry warehouse and dock, along with its horseshoe beach, to be purchased with CPF funds held by Southampton Town. The space was to be turned into a spectacular new waterfront park in the middle of Sag Harbor’s downtown. That project, in the works for more than a year, is stalled on a desk in Southampton, too.

Finally, there is the matter of downtown Bridgehampton, which badly needs more streetlights and more visible crosswalks so people won’t be injured or killed (one killed over two years ago, another woman injured last December) while crossing the streets. Money was made available by the state a month after the woman was killed. It remains unspent and no project has yet to be voted on by the Town.