The Westchester Industrial Development Agency granted final approval last month for $1.7 million in tax exemptions to convert a vacant Harrison office building into medical offices.
Simone Development Cos. plans to spend $61 million on renovating and expanding 104 Corporate Park Drive for a pediatric medical center and cancer treatment center for adults and children.
Montefiore Medical Center will lease the pediatric center for 20 to 30 years, according to project documents, and Simone is discussing a deal with Montefiore and White Plains Hospital to lease the oncology center.
The county IDA granted a $1.3 million exemption on state and local sales taxes on an estimated $18 million in construction materials. It approved a mortgage tax exemption of nearly $420,000.
A Simone subsidiary bought the 6.5-acre property last year for $14 million from an affiliate of HistoGenetics of Ossining.
Simone mortgaged the property to M&T Bank for $11.6 million and petitioned for a $150,800 mortgage recording tax exemption. The $420,000 exemption, according to the IDA resolution, is based on about $42 million in mortgage financing that includes a construction loan.
Simone is also negotiating with Harrison for property tax abatement.
The property is across from a Wegmans grocery store under construction, and near the Life Time Fitness gym and proposed apartment buildings.
The pediatric center will use three floors of the four-story, 115,000-square-foot structure. It will include facilities for urgent care, imaging, labs, behavioral health, maternal fetal medicine, sports medicine, infusions, rehabilitation and other specialties.
The first floor will be used for oncology services and include a 5,000-square-foot addition to house a linear accelerator for radiation treatments.
Health care facilities require more infrastructure, according to Simone”™s IDA application, including larger elevators, redundant mechanical systems and higher capacity water and electrical systems. A three-level, 200 car parking garage will be built, a new roof will be installed and a porte-cochere entrance will be built.
Simone”™s in-house contractor, MCG Construction, will be the project manager. The company has no project labor agreement with the area”™s Building and Construction Trades Council, and it is not committed to using union labor, paying prevailing wages or hiring a particular percentage of local workers.
The developer will evaluate subcontractor bids on their ability to execute in a timely manner, quality of work and price, according to the IDA application.
“Where appropriate,” Simone states in the application, it will hire local labor.
Construction is expected to take 24 months and employ about 100 workers. The facilities are expected to create 250 permanent healthcare jobs and 65 positions for doctors.
