As part of a project planned nearly five years ago, by the developer which bought the property which had previously been the Doubleday headquarters, Doubleday, who has since bought back the three parcels of land that they had once owned, is beginning a major refurbishment of the building now known as 501 Franklin Avenue.

When this property had first been owned by Doubleday, the land was one large parcel which has since been subdivided. Rockrose Developers split the large parcel of land into four smaller properties. The property which is now known as 601 Franklin was sold early on and developed into a medical office building, but Rockrose kept the pieces of land established as 501 Franklin Avenue, 401 Franklin, and 301 Franklin. Rockrose then refurbished the 401 building and leased it back to Doubleday. The 301 property remains a vacant lot but there has been much discussion about what would happen with the 501 Franklin building, which had once been the Doubleday headquarters.

The second phase of Rockrose's plan was to redevelop the entire site and completely refurbish the 501 building. Before refurbishing that building, the plan called for the demolition of the smaller, warehouse-type buildings that had been built around the main building, sometimes referred to as the Hampton Court building, and just leave that main section standing. Rockrose went as far as getting all the site plan approvals and architectural review board approvals for the work they planned and renewed those variances each year although they never followed through on the massive project because they could never find a major tenant.

In the midst of this search for a tenant, Doubleday bought back 401 Franklin. Later the company bought back the other two parcels of land as well and is now following through with the plan set forth by Rockrose.

According to Michael Filippon, Garden City Superintendent of Building, Doubleday plans to remain in the 401 building and expand back into 501. He noted that the village has not seen the plans for the refurbishment but they issued the demolition permits to the construction manager for the project a couple of weeks ago. "As far as the actual work to be done, the redevelopment of the 501 building, I know they have their architects working on that, we haven't seen anything yet, even preliminarily, but we understand that it's going to happen. When, I don't know, but probably not in the very distant future," said Filippon.

Preparation work has begun on the site to secure the main building while the demolition of the outbuildings takes place.