Jailhouse Rock Café?
The Great Escape Hotel?
Getaway River Tours?
The Book ”™Em Bookstore?
The prospects for adaptive reuse, that buzzword in commercial real estate in the changing Westchester County market, might unchain a developer”™s imagination on the Yonkers waterfront this spring. At 24 Alexander St., the soon-to-close Yonkers City Jail is for sale to a redeveloper with a vision and at least a five-year record ”“ a development track record, that is ”“ of success.
City officials this month issued a request for proposals (RFP) from experienced developers to “acquire, preserve, restore, adaptively reuse and redevelop” the two-story, 10,800-square-foot brick house of detention. Proposals are due by 2 p.m. April 5 at the Yonkers planning and development department at 87 Nepperhan Ave.
Zoned for industry, the jail is included in the city”™s Alexander Street master plan, which calls for the replacement of blocks of warehouses, small factories and bus yards with a high-density residential neighborhood beside the Metro-North Railroad tracks that includes a mix of retail stores and restaurants, public parks and open space and commercial offices. The drafty jail in that plan was envisioned for commercial reuse that could include restaurants and cafes.
Planners in the RFP said the city also supported other potential uses such as conversion to a brewery or microbrewery and retail shops.
According to a brief history given to developers, the jail opened in 1928, a few weeks before Herbert Hoover”™s election as president and one year before the stock market crash that launched the Great Depression. It replaced a police station on nearby Wells Street. The corniced building was designed in a Neo-Classical or Federalist style by architect William P. Katz, a Yonkers native who designed several still-standing commercial and public buildings in the city, including the City Health Center at the rear of City Hall where developers will drop off their RFPs.
A bronze plaque in the foyer of the antiquated jail says it was built over a two-year period and completed in 1927. “When Babe Ruth was hitting home runs,” Yonkers Police Capt. Emil Cavorti, head of the department”™s courts and detention services division, told a small group on a recent inspection tour of the historic building. Police will vacate the premises this year when his division moves to new quarters at the Cacace Justice Center on Nepperhan Avenue.
The Babe hit 60 in 1927, far exceeding the number of jail cells, 39, installed that year to accommodate alleged miscreants in Yonkers. Not all of those cells are currently in use, said Cavorti.
“Twenty is a big night” in terms of numbers of handcuffed guests at the not-so-big house that Katz built, which Cavorti said is used as a pre-arraignment holding jail.
“Solid concrete walls,” said Robert Hothan, a Yonkers landlord and developer, tapping on one on the second-floor cell wing reserved for female inmates.
“Demolition would be a huge cost,” said Bernard Stachel, executive vice president of Tamerlain Realty Corp. in Pelham. The broker said he was scouting the jail for Yonkers clients.
“The outside architecture of this building is great,” he said “The size is OK. But not only do you need a ton of money to hollow all this out, you”™ve got to do all the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) requirements for handicapped-accessible. It”™s not sprinklered” to comply with the fire safety code. And the developer would have to build an elevator or second staircase before it could be occupied, Stachel and Hothan pointed out.
With a state environmental quality review required of the new owner and other expenses, “It would be at least 100 grand in soft costs,” said Stachel. Hothan agreed.
“But it”™s a gorgeous building,” Stachel said. “It”™s like a beautiful work of art. If someone really wants it, it”™s reasonable cost.”
Outside on Alexander Street, the broker and the Yonkers landlord paused for another look at the jail. “Actually, it would make a great hotel conversion,” said Stachel.
“It really doesn”™t work. It”™s just too expensive. It might be too early for this.” Alexander Street still lacks the restaurants, bars and boutique retailers that could make the jail”™s reuse viable, he said.
“The other issue with this is there”™s no land,” said Stachel. City planners in the RFP said the jail site is .65 acres or 28,341 square feet.
“There”™s no parking,” said Hothan.
Still, said Stachel, the city jail has been a long-time object of desire for one of his business associates in Yonkers. He sees it as a restaurant, the broker said.
Stachel looked up at the jail”™s row of tall iron-barred windows. Adaptive reuse as a restaurant was on his mind.
“Barbecues,” he said. “On those grates.”
