Office Replaces Rental House on Terry Road

A Hauppauge-based accounting firm is renovating a rundown rental house on the corner of Terry Road and Florence Avenue with hopes of moving across the border into Smithtown. 

Glen Ross expects to move from 636 Veterans Memorial Highway in Hauppauge to its new one-story office building within the next month. The firm is a third-generation company, started by Ross’s grandfather in 1966.

Ross said he bought the building eight years ago and had been renting it to a number of different tenants, both residents and businesses – most recently a psychic – but his intent was always to rebuild.

“I bought this property to knock it down and actually kind of rehab the area, and put a new office in,” he said. “All of this is zoned commercial, but the house is so old it predated zoning requirements. That’s why it’s a residential house sitting in a commercial district.”

Ross had the building razed last year and construction began in June. He said he will also be putting in a sidewalk along Terry Road where none had been before, per town code pursuant to new buildings. The sidewalk will run the length of the block to Elizabeth Avenue.

More than 100 bushes and trees will be planted around the property next week, Ross said. A number of large trees had been cut down to make way for the construction. He also plans to have a high fence built along the side of the property opposite Terry Road, which will obscure from view the residential property behind.

“Hopefully people will invest in this corridor down here and it will continue to improve the neighborhood,” Ross said.