New development chief in Yonkers

Walking the streets of her new development beat in downtown Yonkers, Wilson Kimball points to bustling construction sites and speaks hopefully of more building to come, despite a dismal economic climate that has stalled the city”™s largest redevelopment project and had the prior administration leaving City Hall with a sense of disappointing incompletion.

Hired in January by newly elected Mayor Mike Spano to direct the city”™s downtown and waterfront development office, Kimball sees “a lot of crossover” between her new job and her previous six-year stint as senior vice president for operations at the Battery Park City Authority in lower Manhattan. The 92-acre Battery Park property on the Hudson River is “a huge model,” she said, for the kind of mixed-use development and revitalized parks, marinas and public spaces that city officials and developers envision along approximately 40 acres of Hudson waterfront in Yonkers.

Kimball joined the Manhattan authority in 2005 after serving nine years as chief of staff and counsel to Libby Pataki, then New York”™s First Lady. Her administrative role at Battery Park drew unwanted public notice in 2010, when the state inspector general investigated a complaint of fraud, corruption and favoritism involving Kimball and three other BPCA executives said to form the agency”™s “inner circle” of power.

The investigation ended with no criminal charges filed, though it forced the early retirement of the BPCA president, James Cavanaugh, Kimball”™s boss and alleged romantic partner. Cavanaugh is a former chairman of the Westchester County Republican Committee who served on the state Senate staff of Nick Spano, older brother of Kimball”™s current boss, the Yonkers mayor. Cavanaugh reportedly worked for Nick Spano”™s  Albany lobbying firm after leaving the authority.

Both Cavanaugh and Kimball refused to answer state investigators”™ questions about their relationship, despite warnings that. their refusal to cooperate could cost them their jobs. Following the inspector general”™s findings, the BPCA board penalized Kimball with the loss of five days of paid leave. She remained, though, in her Battery Park City post until November 2011, when her job was eliminated in a round of layoffs that cut about one-third of BPCA staff.

In Yonkers, Kimball said she had no comment on the inspector general”™s report. She is not looking back, but forward to the work  to be done in the city that she now calls home.

At Larkin Plaza, a construction manager stopped to update the development director on  finishing touches to the city ”˜s project to uncover a section of the  Saw Mill River and create a visitor-friendly riverwalk and park that fronts the downtown Metro-North Railroad station. Across Warburton Ave, scaffolding masked the facades of a row of five buildings in the Philipse Manor historic district being renovated by L+M Development Partners Inc. of Larchmont as loft apartments and storefront retail space.

A few blocks west on the riverfront, brothers Arthur and Dwight Collins have taken on Berkshire Property Advisors as majority partner at their Hudson Park mixed-use development. With the added financial backing, they hope to start construction in 2013 on the final residential tower at Hudson Park.

One block from Hudson Park on Buena Vista Avenue, developers at Metro Partners L.L.C. plan to build a 250-foot-high residential tower on the site of Teutonia Hall and redevelop several residential and industrial properties on the downtown block.

“I look around at what”™s happening, and we”™re kind of in a good bubble, not a bad bubble,” Kimball said of the city”™s redevelopment scene. “I get a vibe like Brooklyn or something. It”™s sort of an emerging market.”

Yet to emerge in physical form is the sweeping redevelopment project planned by the city”™s downtown master developer, Struever Fidelco Cappelli L.L.C. (SFC). The city planning board this month will consider SFC”™s request for a three-year extension on site plan approvals for its River Park Center and Government Center projects in the first phase of the redevelopment.

Kimball said the city is working with SFC to revise plans for River Park Center, the retail and entertainment complex to be built at Chicken Island off  Getty Square. “I”™m very, very optimistic that we”™re going to have some development, and in the next two to three years,” she said.
Peter Klein, vice president of development at Fidelco Realty Group and an SFC project manager, said the partners “continue to modify the plans and work with the new administration to make sure that the project that gets built meets the current needs of the city and marketplace.”

Kimball indicated that a 6,500-seat sports stadium that was to crown the River Park Center construction will be eliminated.

Klein said SFC cannot secure commitments from retail tenants until all property parcels are assembled for the proposed 600,000 square-foot project. Thirteen private properties in the Getty Square area were to be acquired by city-sponsored agencies ”“ using eminent domain if owners refused to sale -  for River Park Center. But city officials have waited a few years to receive a $24 million grant from the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York that was earmarked for the property purchases.

“We”™re going to get something. We don”™t know when,” said Kimball. “We”™re eager to get it and I think the state is going to be a good partner. I think we”™ll get that $24 million.”

If the state does not release the grant money, the scale of the first-phase project at River Park Center will be affected, Klein said. It would still be “an impactful project of at least $100 million,” he noted.

A project with reduced square footage could curb interest in leasing in downtown Yonkers by potential big-box tenants. “It”™s all about the project”™s footprint,” said Klein. “The larger the geography of the project site, the larger the tenants will be. But we don”™t want to wait any longer.”

SFC”™s sense of urgency is driven too by terms of its land disposition agreement with the city. The developer has a 2013 deadline – four years from the time the agreement was approved – to begin the first phase of construction at River Park Center or pay an additional $2.18 million to the city.

To the northwest on the city riverfront, a landmark property with a recent history of failed development is about to be purchased by a would-be developer.

Ron Shemesh, owner and CEO of Excelsior Packaging Group on the downtown waterfront, has signed a purchase contract for the former Glenwood power plant. A partner at Ariel Property Advisors, which began marketing the roughly four-acre site one year ago, would not disclose the buyer but confirmed that a contract has been signed and said the deal could close late this year.

“That”™s a huge development that we”™ve been waiting some time for,” said Kimball. A previous developer who had a purchase option and plans for a mixed-use development on the power plant property later declared bankruptcy.

With the purchase, Shemesh and his investment partners will control most of the Alexander Street industrial corridor that city planners want to redevelop as a high-density, mass-transit-oriented neighborhood. The Yonkers planning board last year approved the manufacturer”™s plans to build 1,395 residential units and 85,000 square feet of commercial space in four phases on a 22-acre industrial property at 1 Point St.

Another once-prominent downtown developer, Homes for America Holdings Inc., lost the property in 2009 and abandoned plans for  a $900 million development there after defaulting on more than $100 million in loans.

“The vision of the shining city on the hill,” said Kimball, “we can do it here.”