A piece of property that had been envisioned as being ideal for a hotel is being offered for sale in an auction that is due to receive final bids from qualified bidders on July 19. The property is at 115 Cedar St. in New Rochelle, adjacent to I-95.
The services firm Newmark has been retained as exclusive agent by the entity Bankruptcy Estate of WP Realty Acquisition III LLC and approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York to solicit competing bids for the property.
Newmark had previously offered the property for sale before moving to the auction process. Initial bids will start at $4.95 million with a 5% good faith deposit and a 10% winning bid deposit, according to Newmark.
Documents on file with the Westchester County Clerk”™s office show that the property was purchased on July 20, 2018, by WP Realty Acquisition III LLC located in Dobbs Ferry from Cedarland L.L.C. located in Manhattan. The consideration was $3,65 million.
Ward Capital Management, located at the same Dobbs Ferry address as WP Acquisitions, in late 2018 presented a plan to New Rochelle in which it would team up with Wyndham Hotel Group and construct a 24-story tower with 150 standard hotel rooms and 75 extended-stay suites. The extended-stay suites were planned to be larger in order to attract customers who would want to stay for several weeks. The estimated cost of the hotel project at the time it was proposed was $64 million.
The hotel was to use Wyndham”™s TRYP brand. It also was to include events space, a rooftop swimming pool, food service facilities and a parking garage. In a presentation to the New Rochelle City Council, the developer estimated the project would generate more than $300,000 each year for the city in receipts from the city”™s 3% hotel room occupancy tax.
At the time, architect Gregory Sharp told the council that the hotel tower was meant to create an “iconic architecture identifiable and readable from I-95.”
A zoning amendment was approved for the project and in 2019 the New Rochelle Industrial Development Agency granted nearly $3.3 million in mortgage and sales tax exemptions and a 20-year tax abatement for the project. The IDA was told that the project would create 300 construction jobs and then 250 full-time and 50 part-time jobs.
The New Rochelle Planning Board approved the site plans for the project on June 25, 2019, and the developer expressed a hope that the hotel could be opened in 2021.
The subsequent bankruptcy case of WP Realty Acquisition III LLC makes available not only the property but the plans for the hotel project as well.
“New Rochelle”™s development-friendly climate has led to rapid growth over the past several years,” said Ronald Solarz, Newmark”™s executive managing director. “This auction offers the rare opportunity to acquire a prime New Rochelle development site at a substantially discounted basis and begin construction of a new building, ideally-timed to be delivered as the market fully rebounds over the next 24 to 36 months.”
Newmark says that the property”™s LI-H zoning designation allows for an as-of-right 137,942 square feet of development on the 19,706-square-foot parcel.
“It”™s hard to contain my excitement,” Luiz Aragon, New Rochelle”™s former commissioner of development said when the IDA was considering offering incentives. “When this happens, it will be completely transformative. It will change how people perceive our city.”
