New Tenant Could Soon Take Over Vacant Wendy's

Doors never opened at Wendy's in Smithtown on West Jericho Turnpike near the Commack border, and while the eatery may never open there another tenant soon could.

"It’s been an eyesore. Wendy’s was our tenant, all we are is the owner," said Vincent DiCanio, owner of DiCanio Realty and partner in JT Enterprises, the landlord of the vacant Wendy's property. "They continued to pay us rent but our concerns were that it’s been an eyesore and it’s not completed."

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While DiCanio is not an engineer himself and could only provide sparse details, he said the reason Wendy's never opened were due to problems with the sanitation system. DiCanio's company DiCanio Management Corp. has taken steps with the town to remedy the sanitation system problem by submitting a new site plan with a new sanitation system.

Smithtown's town board approved the SEQRA negative declaration determination of non-significance at the Jan. 8 board meeting for the site plan, meaning the New York Department of Environmental Conservation stated the proposed project won't have a significant adverse impact on the environment. 

DiCanio said although they received this approval they are still waiting on site plan approval from the town to move forward with completing work on the location.

"We’ve come up with a new design where they sanitary could work ... We would complete the site with the same building," DiCanio said. The plans, according to DiCanio, include changes to the parking lot and providing landscaping to the location.

While Wendy's had been paying rent at the location, DiCanio said Wendy's did not want to open with the problems they were facing with the sanitation system. The landlord group settled with the fast food chain, and now it is on the market for other businesses to take over.

DiCanio said there are prospective tenants, but they have no definite occupant for the location yet.

The location, which sits next to Cafe Havana Bar and Grill, quickly became a home for graffiti, remnants of a cesspool and an abundance of weeds, caged-in by a locked chain link fence.

"It’s been sitting too long, we want to have a completed site," DiCanio said. "We think it’s a very desirable site, we just had to get additional approvals and we received them."