“A city on a hill cannot be hidden,” so reads a passage in the Bible. It appears the developers of Westchester”™s Ridge Hill weren”™t far off from that thinking when they built a 1.3 million-square-foot mixed-use development on 82 acres of a Yonkers hillside.
Rising above the New York State Thruway, Ridge Hill combines upscale retail, luxury condominiums and amenities designed to keep the consumer contained, content and spending.
“It”™s bringing it all together and really creating a city within a city,” said Andy Silberfein, executive vice president and director of retail and finance for Brooklyn-based developers Forest City Ratner Cos. Inc.
Select tenants like Whole Foods Market, Sephora, Yard House and L.L. Bean opened with promotional pushes to drive traffic up the hill and into a destination village that is expected to bring in some $24.2 million annually in sales tax revenue.
Comparatively speaking, in concept, the $685 million Ridge Hill mirrors that of Celebration, Fla., the Disney border town that combines housing, a hospital, hotel, restaurants and communal snowfalls for village residents.
“It”™s been many years in the making and what attracted us is there”™s nothing like this in the area from what we understand,” said Alethea Rowe, a senior director at The Cheesecake Factory, which just opened at Ridge Hill and also has inked an international development deal for three stores abroad. “That outdoor lifestyle center, the uniqueness of all of the architectural features and the selection of stores really fits well with us.”
By spring, Silberfein expects the center to be 75 percent to 80 percent occupied; Lord & Taylor will anchor the project with an 80,000-square-foot store.
From the Whole Foods-catered coffee in the morning at the Monarch condominiums to the Ridge Hill Trolley and commuter transportation to train stations, Silberfein wants the community to “promote people staying longer, cross-shopping and cross-dining.”
