Stand on the curb outside K Pasa at 2 Main Street and look toward the harbor. What do you actually see, and what will you see in three years?

That was close to the question Planning Board Chairman John Shaka asked on September 22, during the board's first look at a plan to tear down the building most of the village calls Fort Apache. "Someone is walking by . . . what are they able to see?" he asked. "Are we walling off the water?"

Across the Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter Veterans Memorial Bridge, the village is getting ready to build a public boardwalk aimed at the same goal from the other side: making the shoreline easier to walk and easier to reach. One project is private and one is public. One is in pre-submission and one has a contractor. Both are being judged on the same few hundred feet between Main Street and the water.

Two Buildings, One Parking Lot, Redrawn Twice in Two Years

The two parcels are 2 Main Street and 22 Long Island Avenue, the Water Street Shops building that once housed a 7-Eleven. Developer Jeremy Morton bought both in 2024 for a combined $30 million. Mavik Capital, a New York City real estate investment firm, was one of his original lenders. In May, after Morton defaulted on a $5 million loan Mavik held, the lender took back both lots.

Morton's own plan was to renovate both buildings and add a second story to each, reaching nearly 50,000 square feet in total. The public widely panned it in 2024, and it now appears to have been scrapped. Mavik's team, including architect Chris DiSunno and attorney Denise Schoen of the Adam Miller Group, is starting over with a different idea. They would raze both buildings, merge the lots, and put a glass-covered walkway and promenade where the parking lot sits today.

Here is how the corner compares on paper, using the figures the applicant's representatives presented:

The program would include three retail stores, three restaurants, a dry cleaner or cobbler, a professional office, a medical office, and a general store. The rooftop is set aside as restaurant space, which would add one more harbor-view dining room to a waterfront that already has The Faraway and The Beacon.

The current tenants are part of the story. Fort Apache houses K Pasa, Yummylicious, and Cruust. The Water Street Shops building houses Cluckman's, Sing City, and the Harbor Shop convenience store, among others. DiSunno said the owners are "working hard to retain all the current tenants." The Adam Miller Group also said the owners will favor businesses that commit to staying open year-round when they fill vacant retail space.

Forty Feet of Lawn, and a Building That Has to Rise

The most visible change on the Main Street side is a setback. The plan would move the Fort Apache building 40 feet back from the property line and away from the curb. In its place would be a sloped lawn where, in DiSunno's words, people could sit on the grass with an ice cream or a coffee. DiSunno also said the team is working on separate facades for each tenant to match the character of Main Street.

The sightline debate comes from a different requirement. Under FEMA rules, anything new built on these parcels has to be raised. DiSunno pointed out that this would put the mass of the buildings up in the tree canopy and off the street. Shaka worried that the added height could block harbor views, which he said are protected in the village code through the waterfront overlay district that covers these lots. "While the views may differ, they will still exist," Schoen answered. In 27east's coverage of the meeting, Shaka also said the plan still felt large, and he raised the question of whether it could block views of the park as well as the water.

The zoning hurdles go beyond views. The parcels sit in the village's Historic District, the Village Business District, and the Waterfront Overlay District. The village's superstore clause bars buildings over 10,000 square feet. The Water Street Shops building is already over that size and is allowed because it predates the rule. Tearing it down ends that grandfathered status, so Mavik will need a variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals. Parking variances are needed too, even with the extra spaces, along with a full SEQRA environmental review. 27east called the project "still a long way away from any kinds of approvals."

Across the Bridge, the Village Is Building the Walk

On July 30, the Sag Harbor Village Board held a special meeting. At that meeting, the board voted unanimously to award the John Steinbeck Park Boardwalk Project to Chesterfield Associates for $1,032,070. The boardwalk will link Windmill Beach, off Long Wharf, to John Steinbeck Waterfront Park on the far side of the Haerter bridge. It will be fully ADA-compliant, which serves the village's goal of making the shoreline much easier to reach.

The project has been in the works for years. Former Mayor Jim LaRocca first pushed the idea of connecting the two downtown waterfront areas, and Mayor Tom Gardella has made it a central priority of his administration. Local landscape architect Ed Hollander provided the landscape plan for Steinbeck Park and Windmill Beach free of charge. Some of the funding goes back to 2021. A New York State Department of State Local Waterfront Revitalization Program grant of $279,500 was listed for a Phase 1 walkway at Steinbeck Park, described as a 159-foot ADA-accessible path toward Windmill Park and Long Wharf. Grants cover most of the current project, and local funds cover the rest.

The 27east report on the award gave construction only an estimated start of "this fall" and named no completion date.

The public and private plans meet here. Mavik's representatives told the village they gave priority to pedestrian connections to Steinbeck Park, the waterfront, and the rest of downtown. If both projects are built, someone could walk from a lawn on Main Street, through a covered promenade, past the bridge, and onto a boardwalk to Windmill Beach. Every piece of that route would have been designed in the same few years.

The Theater That Almost Moved Into the Water Street Shops

The Water Street Shops site has been the subject of plans before. Bay Street Theater once proposed moving from Long Wharf into the former Water Street Shops and 7-Eleven property. Its board dropped that plan at the end of 2022, and the properties then went on the market. Bay Street's 2026 season announcement still puts the theater on the Sag Harbor Wharf.

So the Wharf is still where downtown gathers after dark this fall, across from the corner under review:

• October 10, 8 p.m.: Judy Carmichael Trio
• October 11: The Hamptons Black Film Festival is listed at Bay Street, and the Ha Ha Hamptons Comedy Tour plays at 8 p.m. with Bob Nelson, Tom Daddario, Mick Thomas, and Paul Anthony. The comedy show moved to this date after the nor'easter.
• October 17, 8 p.m.: Winslow: An Evening of Eagles
• October 24, 8 p.m.: A second Ha Ha Hamptons date
• October 31: S'mores and Scares at 12:30 p.m. and The Rocky Horror Picture Show at 6:30 p.m.
• November 9 to 29: Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, adapted by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Stephen Hamilton, part of Bay Street's Literature Live! program for middle and high school students

The first weekend of October showed how much the downtown waterfront can handle at once. After the nor'easter postponed the Sag Harbor American Music Festival, the village denied its permit for October 3 and 4. Police Chief Rob Drake explained that a 5K and the Hamptons International Film Festival were already drawing crowds that weekend. The festival moved to three stages at Mashashimuet Park, with no shows at Steinbeck Park, Marine Park, or the alley next to the American Hotel. On a busy weekend, the few hundred feet between Main Street and the water are already full, before any new restaurant seats are added.

The Corner's Calendar

1. End of 2022: Bay Street drops its plan to move into the Water Street Shops, and the properties go on the market.
2. 2024: Morton buys both parcels for $30 million. His plan to enlarge the buildings to nearly 50,000 square feet draws wide public criticism.
3. May 2026: Mavik Capital takes back both lots after the loan default.
4. July 30, 2026: The Village Board awards the Steinbeck boardwalk contract to Chesterfield Associates.
5. September 22, 2026: Mavik's demolition-and-rebuild plan gets its first pre-submission discussion before the Planning Board.
6. This fall: Boardwalk construction is estimated to begin.
7. October 27, 2026, 5 p.m.: The Planning Board continues its pre-submission conference on 2 Main Street and 22 Long Island Avenue.

The variance applications and environmental review are still ahead. Anyone who wants to see the plans in person can attend the October 27 session. The East Hampton Star's September 24 report and 27east's breakdown of the floor areas are the most detailed public accounts so far.

For owners whose properties sit within sight of the harbor, a change on this corner is a change to their own setting. At Matthew Breitenbach, we follow Sag Harbor's waterfront reviews closely and are glad to talk through what any outcome could mean for a specific address. Request Private Access to start that conversation.