A development proposal for the 4.14-acre site at 45 Bedford Road in Armonk where Mariani Gardens used to operate has received site plan approval and a special use permit extension from the Town of North Castle. Mark Mariani formed Mariani’s Garden Market Inc. in 2005, and operated a nursery and garden center on the property.
The proposal for the site is to create a housing complex known as The Gateway Residential Development. The North Castle Planning Board approved the site plan and the Town Board approved a one-year extension for the project’s special use permit that previously had been granted. Owners NCD Acquisitions LLC and 45 Bedford Road LLC plan to build 34 residential units in 11 buildings, some of which will be townhomes. The units would be for sale as condominiums.
Attorney Anthony F. Veneziano, Jr., who represented the developer, told the Planning Board that all of the units would be approximately 2,100 square feet in size. The project would have a total of 68 bedrooms. He said that four of the units would be priced as affordable housing. In its infancy, the project had been proposed to have 43 units in four buildings with a total of 132 parking spaces and then 50 units with 120 parking spaces.
Veneziano pointed out that the developer has designed the buildings so that they emulate the look of single-family houses and are in keeping with the type of architecture found elsewhere in the area. In the past town officials had expressed concern that the design of the project was not in keeping with the Bedford Road Historic District. The locations of the buildings on the site were adjusted and Veneziano said that the developer, in response to comments from the town, had changed the plans so that the ground level where cars would be parked underneath the residential levels would be enclosed rather than have the sides open as in a carport arrangement.
Veneziano indicated that the developer is anxious to begin construction.
“They’ve been very, like, ‘get it done for us,”‘ Veneziano said.
