Developer seeks to drop rental units, go all-condo in White Plains project

Chappaqua-based Developer WBP Development LLC, which has received approvals from White Plains for converting the former Berkeley College property that has frontage on Church Street and Cottage Place into a residential development offering a mix of condominium and rental units is now asking for approval of an amended site plan that would eliminate the rental units and replace them with condos. If approved, the amended site plan would treat all units in the project as for-sale condos.

Berkeley College closed its White Plains campus in the summer of 2021 and moved operations to its New York City campus effective with the semester than began in the fall of 2021.

According to Attorney Janet Giris of the White Plains-based law firm DelBello Donnellan Weingarten Wise & Wiederkehr LLP, the developer of the residential project has determined that the changes it is requesting are necessary “to make the project financially feasible.”

There are two buildings on the 0.93-acre site: a six-story building at 6 Cottage Place, which the developer identifies as the “Cottage Building,” and a four-story building at 99 Church St., which the developer identifies as the “Church Building.” The property also has a total of 49 parking spaces, which serve both buildings.

In June of this year, the Common Council gave site plan and special permit approval to plans for the adaptive reuse and renovation of the buildings to have 123 affordable multifamily dwelling units with 82 parking spaces on the property. The Cottage Building was to have 55 affordable rental apartments. The units in the Church Building were going to be condominiums.

Instead of providing 55 rental units in the Cottage Building, the developer is now asking the city to approve putting 40 units in that building, all of which would be sold as condos. It said that the sale prices would be set so that the units would be affordable to people making 80% of the Area Median Income. In addition, the developer is asking for approval to add seven parking spaces to those currently proposed.

The amended site plan proposes eight apartments on each floor of the Cottage Building, with a mix of 10 studios, 25 one-bedroom units and five three-bedroom units. In addition, two parking spaces that were going to be on the first floor of the building have been eliminated. As now proposed, the first floor would have storage areas, management offices, a gym, a community room, the lobby, a package room and mechanical areas.

What Giris described as “certain minor modifications” are proposed for the Church Building. These include reconfiguring parking that was approved for the basement and first floor of the building. Driveways and parking ramps would be modified and locations for some plantings would be changed.

Giris pointed out that the approved plans allowed the developer to provide 82 parking spaces and pay a fee to the city in lieu of providing the 123 spaces that would have been required. The amended plan would require only 108 spaces with the developer providing 89 spaces, reducing the number of spaces to be covered by a fee-in-lieu payment.