Redeveloping the gateway to downtown White Plains, the Metro-North Railroad station, should be the city”™s first focus of development when the good times roll again, in the view of Mayor Adam T. Bradley.
“There”™s a tremendous opportunity there,” Bradley told real estate professionals at a recent meeting of the Commercial Investment Division of the Westchester Putnam Association of Realtors.
Surveying current private development projects in the city, the first-year mayor and former state assemblyman said, “What we don”™t have is very big development that we obviously saw during the boom. I think that will come when the economy picks up.”
The leading major developer of downtown White Plains in recent years, Louis R. Cappelli, head of Cappelli Enterprises Inc. in Valhalla, in 2007 proposed a $1 billion mixed-use development, called Station Square, which included a new White Plains train station and 1.5 million square feet of office space in three towers in the station area. Denied exclusive development planning rights for the project by the City Council, Cappelli later that year withdrew his proposal.
Bradley”™s predecessor at City Hall, Joseph M. Delfino, subsequently shelved preliminary proposals from four other developers competing for rights to the station project after council members, miffed at being shut out of the mayor”™s dealings with the city”™s potential business partners, gave developers a chilly, silent reception.
“Regardless of anything else, the timing was bad,” Bradley said of the Station Square project three years ago. With the economy collapsing in 2008, leaving many developers unable to obtain financing, “We might have been confronted with another hole in the ground,” he said.
Bradley said the train station is “absolutely pivotal” as the city”™s major gateway. Its redevelopment, which he suggested could include a new Westchester County Center, will require “a unique partnership” of public and private entities. “I do think it”™s absolutely vital that, given the opportunity, we take care of the station,” he said.
Bradley said Metro-North officials are “very interested” in redeveloping the property and want to make White Plains “the signature station on their line.”
Bradley said two major retail fixtures, the Galleria mall and City Center, could be made vibrant parts of the downtown scene if they were more accessible from Main Street and Mamaroneck Avenue respectively. He said he has discussed opening the malls to the street with Cappelli, City Center”™s owner and operator, and Simon Property Group, which owns the Galleria. On the owners”™ part, “I think there”™s an interest, but we will have to be realistic of the economic conditions,” Bradley said.
Metropolitan Plaza, a planned retail and office development on a partly vacant Main Street block that adjoins City Center, is an “exciting” proposal and will be good for the city “if we can iron out all the details,” the mayor said.
Developers Anthony “A.J.” Rotonde and William Meyer are seeking city approval of their plans to build 17,000 square feet of retail space and 9,000 square feet of office space above existing buildings on the 200 block of Main Street, in addition to a 150-space underground garage and a pedestrian walkway from Main Street to the City Center garage. Rotonde has estimated the project cost at $7 million to $10 million.
In a second phase, the Metropolitan Plaza developers plan to build a six-story to eight-story hotel or residential building over 150 Main St. at an estimated cost of $10 million.
“I think that”™s a way of reinvigorating a portion of White Plains on Main Street that”™s probably ready for that,” Bradley said.
Though the city is struggling to raise revenue for public services at a time when taxpayers can least afford it, “I really believe the city is in great shape compared to what else is out there,” he said. “I also believe this city is primed for when the economy recovers.”
