Former Purcell Deputy Owen Smith dies, chief architect of Mitchel Field office complex

                                                                                    

Owen Smith

Former Nassau Deputy County Executive Owen Smith, a top aide to the late Republican County Executive Fran Purcell from 1978 through 1987, died Monday after a long illness, Newsday reported today.

But Newsday didn't mention Smith's lasting mark on Nassau County as the chief planner and architect in developing the former Mitchel Field air base in Uniondale into a county-owned and leased office complex.

Smith set the terms for most of the 23 deals to develop 245-acres of former military property acquired from the federal government and then leased to private developers --  without competitive bidding and without appraisals on more than half of the commercial land.

Some 73 percent of the property went to firms with principals or lawyers connected to the then-dominant Nassau Republican party.

But hey, this is Nassau County after all.

The leases set below-market rents for the 99-year leases with no increases during the last 74 years. Some of the leaseholders subsequently sold their leases for multi-million dollar profits with no cut for county taxpayers.

After Newsday did a close examination of the deals, then Nassau District Attorney Denis Dillon in early 1989 issued a critical 104-page report, saying county taxpayers would lose about $2.7 billion because of the below-market rents. Dillon reported there was a "total lack of effective checks and balances with respect to the development of Mitchel Field."

Although county lawyers urged that rent increases be part of the lengthy leases, Dillon reported that Smith refused to include rent escalators as a result of his experience with steep rent escalation during the 1970s at Lauraine Murphy restaurant, a Manhasset business then owned by Smith's family.

Various plans were circulated through the years for use of the Mitchel Field property. Purcell hit upon the concept of an office complex as he searched for ways to bring the county out of the economic doldrums of the the 1970s. He decided office development was a way to ensure a steady cash flow to Nassau, which has encountered financial crisis after financial crisis for the past 40 years.

Now, however, there is continuing talk that, like many office building owners around the country, the Mitchel Field lease holders are also facing hard times in paying their rents because of government- imposed pandemic lockdowns that drove employees out of the office and into remote work.