A building in White Plains that at one time had been residential and was converted into offices may soon be residential again. The building in question is at 19 Greenridge Ave., and the nonprofit Shore/iCare has a contract to buy it and then plans a conversion to residential. Shore/iCare would create six rental apartments that would be priced as affordable housing for tenants earning 60% or less of the Area Median Income.
According to a real estate listing the building is on a 0.33-acre lot, was built in 1985 and formerly housed medical offices.
The conversion project has been awarded $1.6 million in funding through New York State Homes and Community Renewal’s (HCR) Small Rental Development Initiative, it was announced by Gov. Kathy Hochul. She announced awards totaling $44.7 million in new funding under three HCR programs to create and rehabilitate more than 420 rental units in the state.
Richard Abraham, a project manager for Shore/iCare’s Greenridge Avenue development told Westfair’s Westchester County Business Journal that the organization would be submitting its plans for the 19 Greenridge Ave. site to the City of White Plains within the next couple of weeks and would then await comments from the city’s Building Department. He said that last year Shore/iCare had discussed the possibilities with the city including with former Mayor Tom Roach.
Abraham said, “We were careful to design it so it would not require variances from the Zoning Board and we could convert the building ‘as of right’ because what we are rehabbing is all within the permissible uses of that particular zoning district. We’re not building anything new; we’re just working within the existing building’s footprint.”
Abraham described the project as being consistent with Shore/iCare’s mission.
“One goal is to try to create more housing, but really good quality units that are energy efficient and people would be proud to call home,” Abraham said. “There’s a challenge with organizations like ours … because a lot of organizations like ours have these older properties and it’s a big challenge to have the money to keep them up, so when there’s an opportunity to do new construction or adaptive reuse, which is what we’re doing here, it’s a chance to build really good quality homes for people that are energy efficient but that will also have a meaningful discount for the rent because it’s one thing for a unit to be serving someone who is making 80% of the Area Median Income and it’s another for it to be for someone who is below 60% Area Median Income in Westchester County. We want to make really nice homes for people who are working in Westchester.”
Abraham said Shore/iCare anticipates that it will be able to close on the purchase of the property in late summer.
Included in the latest round of HCR funding announced by Hochul was a grant of $2.3 million to the nonprofit RUPCO to create 28 units of affordable housing across Westchester, Columbia, Dutchess, Greene, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Ulster, and Sullivan Counties.
In addition, there was a grant of $1.3 million to Sisters of Charity for 200 Tremper Ave., a six-unit building in the city of Kingston along with $833,669 to the nonprofit Blue Mountain for 7 Katonah Ave., a 4-unit affordable building in Katonah.
HCR Commissioner RuthAnne Visnauskas said, “This $44.7 million investment across three of our programs will improve affordability and utilize the potential of vacant buildings throughout New York. We look forward to working with our local partners and developers as these projects progress.”
