KNOX— The yet-to-be-named rebuilt building in the Knox hamlet is nearing completion.

Owner and town supervisor Vasilios Lefkaditis has a list of possible tenants for his 3,000-square-foot building, which is  being divided into three 1,000-square-foot commercial spaces.

The one-story building at 2160 Berne-Altamont Road, not far north of the Knox Town Hall, has stood on  the site for decades. But in its  new incarnation, the building  may no longer be recognizable to those who remember the old Knox Country Store that the structure housed for decades.

When fully-tenanted, the building, which is getting a gut rehab and exterior redesign by local builders Pasquini Construction, will provide the only commercial activity in the hamlet.

Like many rural hamlets, Knox once had a bustling business center that has lain fallow as shoppers moved to suburban malls and the internet to make their purchases.

Last year, before Lekaditis, a hedge fund manager, was elected supervisor, the Knox Planning Board designated the hamlet as the town’s only business district—a move endorsed by Knox’s comprehensive plan and the town board at the time. Lefkaditis ran on a pro-business platform, ousting the long-time supervisor.

Lefkaditis says he is not sure if there will be a grand opening with all three tenants open for business at the same time or a more gradual rollout.

“Just because this is a rural town,” he said, “doesn’t mean we can’t have common conveniences available to us like everybody else. There’s no question the community needed it.”

He said he has seen the project from the first as “more a community service than a business operation.”  He likes the idea of creating a community gathering place, akin to what the Fox Creek Market in Berne hamlet has become, a place he admires for its ambience and food.

“You go in there in the morning and there are 10 or 15 people in there for a cup of coffee and they talk about whatever it is they talk about,” he says.

The one-story building has been stripped down to its steel beams and rebuilt by Bill Pasquini and his son, Bill.  They said that they don’t get a lot of call for commercial work; residential is their main business.

Lefkaditis says he has worked with the father-son team to come up with some good ideas.

Among them is a front porch:  a roofed raised walkway that extends across the front of the building, with the three business entrances opening off it. This long main facade faces north and, like the short side facing the street, has big window openings.

“We wanted customers to be able to get from store to store without getting wet,” says Lefkaditis. “Also we wanted a roofed area where a tenant could put out a few tables and chairs.”

“We want the place to have a rural look, but at  the same time look new,”  says Lefkaditis.

Tenants will be responsible for interior finishing.

“We’re negotiating leases right now. We have plenty of people who are interested,” her said.

As to the sort of tenants he has in mind, Lefkaditis has two definite ideas.

One, he says, has to be a food market, with perhaps food service. Knox Town Board member Dennis Barber may be the person who establishes that kind of business there.

A second must-have, he says, is a barber shop so people “don’t have to go off the Hill” to get a haircut. He says he has three candidates for that slot: two would cut men’s hair only; the third would serve men and women and offer tanning and coloring as well

As for the third space, he says several possibilities are on the table, including a home fireplace store, an antique store, or a soft ice cream vendor.

“Splitting the space into three made a lot of sense,” he said. A 3,000-square-foot store would be too big to create the kind of busy community space he is looking for, he says.

The reconstructed building has a decades-long history as a store.  “As long as I can remember,” says the elder Bill Pasquini,  “it was a store. ”

After the Knox Country Store closed more than five years ago, the building stood vacant until Lefkaditis decided it was time for a revival.

Asked about another Hilltowns lack, a gas station, he said, “We tried for two years to get a company interested [in the site] but the traffic count was just too low for them.”

He estimated off-street parking space should be able to accommodate as many as 40 cars, with easy in and out via a circular drive extending to the rear of the building.

Lefkaditis also owns the building just to the south of the mini-shopping-center-to-be. It’s a frame residential building that he “hopes to save but may not be able to.” It is currently vacant, but once housed the Knox post office. When postal officials determined it was no longer fit for that function, a bank of postal boxes were built at the Knox Town Hall to serve hamlet residents.

At a June town board meeting, Lekaditis received strong support from both residents and town board members, who unanimously rejected new lighting and noise ordinances proposed by the planning board for new businesses. Lefkaditis did not recuse himself from the vote as the owner of a business that might have been affected by the proposals had they become law; rather he strongly urged the board to defeat the proposals, which were years in the making.

He told the meeting, “I moved to Knox because it’s unregulated. If I wanted to be regulated, I’d stay in Queens.”

He and his family have made their home in Knox for eight years.

Lefkaditis says he is looking for a name of the commercial center, and would be pleased to get  ideas. He says Knox Corners, one proposed name, doesn’t cut it.