MTA confirms tentative deal to acquire Lawrence Aviation site

The MTA confirmed last week that it has reached a tentative agreement with Suffolk County to acquire a portion of the former Lawrence Aviation Industries site in Port Jefferson Station.  Officials hope that the site will eventually become a train yard for the LIRR's Port Jefferson Branch.  MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said at a state budget hearing in Albany last week that the MTA has “an agreement in principle” to acquire the property.

The lack of a proper yard on the Port Jefferson Branch has long been a constraint used as an excuse for not increasing service.  The LIRR did not build a yard at Huntington Station, since it was only supposed to be the end of electrification temporarily until LIRR completed electrification to Port Jefferson (which has never happened).  As a result, LIRR's terminal operations are very constrained at Huntington Station, since they can only store three or four trains on the South Side Extension track east of the station.  LIRR has made various half-hearted attempts to build a larger yard on the Port Jefferson Branch over the last 20 years, but have abandoned those plans for one reason or another.

Lawrence Aviation Industries was an aircraft parts manufacturer that made titanium parts for military aircraft from 1959 until 2003.  Its main base of operations was at a 126-acre site in Port Jefferson Station, about two-thirds of a mile west of the LIRR station.  Similar to other industrial sites that supported the aviation industry during this era, there was extensive ground pollution and dumping of waste during operations, and the ground is contaminated and designated as a Superfund site.  According to the NYS DEC, waste generated from manufacturing included fluorides, sludges, caustic acids, and halogenated solvents and were dumped in several areas at the facility, including lagoons and cesspools.  Gerald Cohen, Lawrence Aviation's former owner, was sentenced to one year and a day in prison and ordered to pay $105,816 for illegally storing more than 12 tons of hazardous waste at the site.  As part of a separate proceeding, Lawrence Aviation and Mr. Cohen were ordered to pay $48.1 million to cover the costs of the cleanup program. But Mr. Cohen died in 2020, leaving most of that plus $17.9 million in outstanding taxes unpaid.

Last year, Federal prosecutors approved a settlement that ended several years of litigation and paving the way for portions of the land to be sold to others to repay the outstanding debts.  The site was conveyed to the Suffolk County Landbank, which in turn is in the process of selling 40-acres of the site to the MTA in December for $10.  MTA is planned to be one of three users at the 126-acre site, with sate plans for a 36-acre solar farm and a 44-acre park/open space for the Town of Brookhaven.  The solar farm developer would pay $5 million, and both Suffolk County and the Town of Brookhaven will each pay $2.5 million.  These funds will go towards partially reimbursing the site's creditors.

Suffolk County Landbank's "preferred redevelopment scenario" showing the location of a potential LIRR yard, open space, and light industrial/solar farm (Suffolk County Landbank)

Local officials have long sought the MTA to be a partner for redeveloping the site, and to some extent this is being foisted on them.  The issues with soil contamination and pollution at the Lawrence Aviation site probably aren't fully resolved, and the MTA has lots of money so might as well get them entangled in the redevelopment going forward.

In his remarks, Mr. Lieber characterized the Lawrence Aviation site as “the best opportunity to create a yard” on the Port Jefferson Branch.   He also characterized a new yard near Port Jefferson Station as a "precondition" for future service expansions, which is setting up quite the red herring.  While a proper yard on the Port Jefferson Branch should definitely be pursued, it does not need to be a precondition to service increases.

The west yard adjacent to Port Jefferson station, which is
unused for passenger trains (Photo: The LIRR Today)

The LIRR already has two yards in Port Jefferson Station, its main yard east of the station which has capacity for 9 trains and is fully utilized with the 9 sets used for AM Peak service.  But the LIRR also has a west yard immediately adjacent to the station which can store an additional 8 trains (plus a wye that can store two more shorter trains) that LIRR has not utilized for passenger equipment for several decades—so there is clearly plenty of room to grow diesel service with the existing infrastructure.

The hitch is the yard tracks around Port Jefferson Station are all pretty short—the west yard is bifurcated by a grade crossing and the east yard has only one track that can fit a 12-car train.  This is not really an issue for the 4- or 6-car diesel sets that usually run to Port Jefferson (so LIRR could store 10 more diesel sets in Port Jefferson, including 3 more 8-car dual mode sets), but if we are talking electrification and bringing primarily 8-, 10-, and 12-car electric sets to Port Jefferson, then the existing yard facilities are not ideal.

Reusing the Lawrence Aviation site to create a new yard with plenty of tracks that can fit several 12-car trains, room to conduct maintenance and inspections, etc. would definitely be ideal—but it's not a necessity for service increases or electrification, and the MTA should not precondition it as such. 

MTA's acquisition of the Lawrence Aviation site is definitely a step in the right direction and important progress for this underutilized property, but we should be clear that MTA is getting saddled with a Superfund site that has been entangled in litigation for years—there is a long road ahead for construction of anything here.  And MTA is already using it as a roadblock or excuse to avoid future service increases.  The long wait for Port Jefferson Branch electrification continues...