New parking lot to serve Sportset customers

A long-unused lot at the corner of Maple and St. Marks avenues will soon be a parking lot to service one of the many businesses in the area, and the Village of Rockville Centre noted that it expects the development to alleviate the consistent parking concerns faced by residents.

Village Spokeswoman Julie Scully said permits have been issued for the private parking lot, a project that, when complete, the village hopes will ease parking difficulties in the neighborhood by lessening the demand of public lots.

“When you have a village that has a high occupancy rate like the village does and that people come to all the time, parking can be an issue,” Scully said. “It’s a good problem to have and it’s one that this administration is trying to address.”

Sportset Health and Fitness Club began leasing the land in January, according to the business’s owner, Dennison Silvio, and ground broke on the project at the end of May. “I’ve been having a need to increase my parking for my client base for a long time now because parking in the town is obviously a big issue,” Silvio said, adding that his business has been growing over the last few years.

The 45,000-square-foot gym has serviced the community since 1978, and offers activities like racquetball, as well as yoga, cycling and Pilates classes. Silvio, who has worked at Sportset for 16 years, bought it nearly five years ago, and as the business grew, so did the need for parking. The closure of another local gym drove more customers to Sportset and exacerbated the parking problem, he added, and in the mornings especially, sometimes 200 people flock to the fitness club.

The land was at one time the site of a gas station and auto repair shop, Silvio said, but had sat unused for at least a few years, according to satellite images from Google Maps. The owner of the property did not respond to the Herald’s request for comment.

The landlord’s contractors have finished installing dry wells into the ground, Silvio said, and they will soon be smoothing out the land and paving it. He added that he hopes the 26-space lot for his customers — across the street and about a block west of the gym — will be complete sometime this summer.

“[There are] a lot of cars to park,” Silvio said, “so this is really necessary.”