Cost segregation on Long Island

The buildings

Most of Long Island’s income property was built after the war, on large lots, one or two stories high. Garden apartment complexes are found in nearly every town. Shopping centers and freestanding retail buildings line Sunrise Highway, Hempstead Turnpike, Jericho Turnpike and Route 110. Medical office buildings cluster around the hospitals. The Island’s industrial property is concentrated in the Hauppauge industrial park, along the Route 110 corridor in Melville and Farmingdale, and around Bethpage, Plainview, Bohemia and Ronkonkoma. It consists mostly of single-story buildings with offices at the front, warehouse or production space behind, and truck courts and parking around them.

For all of these, a considerable part of what was spent is in the ground. Parking fields, curbs, drainage structures, site lighting, signage, fencing and landscaping are generally land improvements. Much of Suffolk County has no public sewers, so a building there sits on its own sanitary system as well.

A newer kind of building has appeared beside the railroad stations. Mineola, Farmingdale, Patchogue, Ronkonkoma and other downtowns have added multi-story rental buildings with structured parking and amenity space, built with construction loans and documented accordingly. The East End is a separate market of inns, motels rebuilt as small hotels, restaurants and seasonal rental property, where furnishings and equipment are a large part of the investment.

Records

Each town and incorporated village on Long Island issues its own permits, so the public record is scattered and the owner’s files carry the weight. For a garden complex, the useful records are those of the periodic large projects: roofs, boilers, windows, repaving, and kitchen and bath programs. For a shopping center or an industrial building the leases are needed along with the construction or acquisition records, because they determine who owns the tenant improvements.

Common situations

The purchaser of a garden apartment complex. The owner of a neighborhood shopping center who has just rebuilt the parking field and the storefronts. A business owner who has bought or built the company’s industrial building and holds it in a separate entity. A medical practice that has bought and fitted out its own building. The purchaser of an East End inn who renovated it before opening. The services page explains how a study is prepared in each case.

Site visits

Visits are made by car. A large complex or shopping center is recorded building by building and the grounds are covered in full, which is where much of the documentation for a suburban property is gathered. Tenants’ spaces are seen with notice and at a convenient hour.

The page on property types covers retail, medical office, hotels and industrial buildings, and apartment owners will find more on the page about multifamily cost segregation.

Other areas served

Highbridge Studies works throughout the New York City metro area, including New Jersey: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island, Westchester, Jersey City and Hoboken, Bergen County, Newark and Essex County, Monmouth County and New Jersey.