Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. has put Stony Brook University’s administration on notice for what he alleges is years of neglect of its Southampton campus.
In a press release issued Feb. 8, Mr. Thiele called for Stony Brook to commit to renovating the crumbling Southampton Hall, develop a five-year plan for the rest of the campus, and appoint a senior administrator dedicated to overseeing it all.
“The Southampton campus can be one of Stony Brook University’s greatest assets,” Mr. Thiele said, “yet it is wasting away. The university has had stewardship of the property for 17 years. Their lack of action over the last four years is inexcusable and can no longer be tolerated. Not only is Southampton Hall a potential economic engine for eastern Long Island as a center of arts and culture, but the abandoned residential dormitory complex possesses a great opportunity for community housing.”
As one of the people who successfully sued Stony Brook in 2010, after the university had attempted to close the Southampton campus a year earlier, Mr. Thiele’s history with the campus is a long and complex one. He and then-State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle helped Stony Brook acquire it from Long Island University in 2006, and he was a proponent of the university’s merger with Southampton Hospital, which was completed in 2017.
In the 2018-19 school year, Mr. Thiele said, Stony Brook committed $5 million, plus $200,000 for a feasibility study, to the renovation of Southampton Hall.
“The future of the campus was bright” at that time, Mr. Thiele said last week.
But the administration seems to be neglecting the campus, he said, in particular the “architecturally significant” Southampton Hall, which was once “at the center of campus life” but which has now been condemned by the university’s fire marshal. He and State Senator Anthony Palumbo, Mr. LaValle’s successor, wrote to Maurie McInnis, Stony Brook’s president, in July to urge her to tap the Long Island Investment Fund, which made universities eligible to receive part of its $350 million state allocation, for help in renovating Southampton Hall.
“Friends of the Southampton campus have waited long enough for Stony Brook University to fulfill its responsibility to Southampton,” Mr. Thiele said. “We will wait no longer.”
Stony Brook University officials responded by saying in a statement that the school “has been and will continue to be committed to Southampton — the campus and the community.” They pointed to the growing arts and science programs there, as well as the impact that the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences has had on improving water quality and restoring the clam population in Shinnecock Bay. It is also about to embark on a search for a new vice president of strategic initiatives “whose work will include a focus on determining an overall strategy for our Southampton campus.”
The school’s satellite emergency department is nearly ready for groundbreaking in East Hampton, and “we continue to plan for the building of a new Stony Brook Southampton Hospital on our campus,” university officials said.
“We appreciate our longstanding relationship with Assemblyman Thiele and his continued support of our Southampton campus and the entire East End community,” the statement said. “We respect his passion for the campus, which was shown recently through his securing support to repair the historic windmill on campus, and look forward to continue working with him on issues important to the East End.”