Cross County Shopping Center has been remaking itself since 2006.
The $350 million-plus price tag includes people-friendly landscaping, a raft of new stores, public restrooms ”“ a first for the 55-year-old Yonkers center ”“ and the possibility the old Cross County Hospital will become a hotel.
Work will take another three years to complete, but this summer visible aesthetic improvements will appear. The marketing manager for California-based developer Macerich, Liz Pollack, can”™t wait. Plants, waterfalls, seating, two kids”™ places … a marked improvement over the current asphalt sea: “That”™s something we”™re really looking forward to.”
But this spot is really about commerce and has been for hundreds of years, as a monument bears witness behind Macy”™s. Current commerce, perhaps surprisingly given major construction, is thriving.
“Flocking” is not too strong a word to describe the recent influx of tenants, several swimming in a crowded sea called “fashion forward” and signing up for more than 20,000 square feet.
Construction that will add 200,000 square feet to the existing million square feet has so far meshed well with the shopping. Steel and insulation and sheetrock at times are not pretty ”“ dirt, safety nets, added regulations ”“ but a concerted effort to minimize hardship, including shutting down all work for the holiday sales season, appears to be winning the day where other major construction-meets-business models ”“ like the remake of the intersection of Tuckahoe Road and Central Avenue a mile north 40 years ago ”“ have left businesses in shambles. There may be an occasional flagman, but the Multiplex Cinemas still pack them in.
Suzette”™s Lingerie ”“ the only original store ”“ has found a new home in a newly constructed building.
Yonkers IDA President and CEO Ellen Lynch recently stood beside Macy”™s ”“ buffeted like many retailers, shuttering 11 stores in nine states ”“ and noted the shopping center”™s steady crowd, the two-thirds-full parking lot. Fifty feet to her left, Macy”™s was adding a $27.4 million extension to its current facility, independent of Macerich”™s $350 million input. “They”™re expanding here,” she said of Macy”™s. “Nowhere else in America are they expanding.”
Cross County has a tremendous sentimental appeal and brand recognition of which newer facilities can only dream. Pollack said, “We hear all the time from people who bought their First Communion dress here or who learned to drive here in the parking lot. That history and loyalty is something we want to embrace and turn into a more vibrant shopping experience.”
“It”™s so important to keep it moving forward,” said Lynch, who well knew of Sunday driving lessons at Cross County. “It”™s really part of the city”™s growth and its renaissance.”
The entire center is an Empire Zone, though not all of the 90 stores participate in the state-funded, city-administered tax-abatement program.
The overarching focus for several of the big stores ”“ Bebe, 4,390 square feet; AX Armani Exchange, 5,025 square feet; Guess, 4,998 square feet; Forever 21, 26,484 square feet; and H&M, Â 22,385 square feet ”“ is fashion-forward, street chic, affordable, stylish and, in one pitch, that of American Eagle Outfitters: usable. Victoria”™s Secret Pink and Victoria”™s Secret ably keep up the drumbeat of youth and beauty, having recently added 5,300 square feet to their combined footprint of (now) 13,300 square feet. (Several of these stores will open in the next few weeks, including H&M, AX Armani and Forever 21; others are open for business.)
Center anchors Macy”™s, Sears and Old Navy have their own chic sides, of course, but play very well with the less festive ”“ even the lug-soled ”“ among us.
Lynch and IDA Chief Financial Officer Melvina Carter pointed to the dozens of smaller stores as they walked the site with Pollack, citing their import in the center”™s remake and in the city”™s economic story. “We”™ve worked very hard to remember that every one of these doors is a business,” said Lynch.
The Super Stop & Shop ”“ the fourth anchor ”“ draws from a wide catchment area that includes much of southeast Yonkers, the North Bronx and those who by nature wed a trip to the Sports Authority with the need for groceries.
“Cross County Shopping Center is undergoing a dramatic transformation,” said James Stifel, chief investment officer for Benenson Capital Partners L.L.C. and a representative for the property”™s owner, New York City-based Brooks Shopping Center L.L.C. “Not only are we restoring the architecture and landscaping, we also are introducing very exciting brands to the center”™s merchandise mix that are a perfect enhancement of current offerings and meet the needs of our shoppers.”
This year and next, Pollack said, aesthetics will begin to gain traction as seemingly acres of open asphalt will give way to paving stones, comfortable seats, plantings and a children”™s park populated with oversized animals: “Something like the ”˜Alice in Wonderland”™ statues in Central Park.”Â
By the end of this summer, there will be real visible progress toward making Cross County ”“ that”™s what everyone calls it; “the Cross County” is the parkway ”“ a showcase marketplace, as it was in 1954. In so doing, some 4,000 hardhats will ply their trades, about a thousand jobs per year of heavy construction.
When the saws fall silent, the Macerich improvements are expected to boost the existing center jobs from 2,540 to 2,920. The Macy”™s expansion is expected to swell Macy”™s payroll by 54 to 429.
“I think it was a great move for the city to get involved,” said Carter. She gestured across a parking lot to the west where I-87 pulsed. “There”™s a lot of traffic on the New York State Thruway and it”™s right here.”
Carter”™s interests today are rooted in the numbers, but she, too, has an attachment to the center. Her brother was born at Cross County Hospital (half occupied as office and community college class space today, perhaps a hotel in the future) and she took a bus “all by myself” one day to go shopping at the center, a first and a memory that still brings a smile to the now-mother of a college freshman.
The electric security scooter on site is the T-3 Motion. No cost was available, but it can go 20 mph, charges in a few hours and runs on just a dime a day of electricity.
The piles of dirt around the site are from different excavations and will be re-used and re-processed in other locations on site, such as the new enclosed parking garage to rise south of Macy”™s.
The rock attesting to Cross County”™s vaunted position as the veritable type site of New World commerce stood proud and fenced in beside a backhoe recently. The Native Americans and Dutch traded on the spot with easy access factoring into the equation at some level. Otherwise, why meet there? Perhaps the Sprain Brook was more navigable in those days; its namesake parkway made it more sluiceway than creek.
The drivers on the highways that fuel Cross County”™s commerce today ”“ I-87 and the Cross County Parkway, plus to the east Kimball Avenue ”“ are in the next three years expected to get an eyeful. What had been perhaps too rooted in history is leaping to state of the art. That all this is being accomplished in a historically deep recession ”“ “a very difficult time” in Lynch”™s words ”“ and while business continues (largely) uninterrupted borders on miraculous.
“It”™s a critical asset to the city,” Lynch said. “And it”™s at a key point where everybody sees it.
“With the additional traffic generated by the (Yonkers) Raceway, you”™ve got people from all over coming to Yonkers on a regular basis,” she said. “This high visibility makes it even more important that what they see reflects positively on Yonkers. Cross County had fallen down far below what we would want it to be. We want people to see something they”™ll want to come back to and spend some money here, doing their shopping because they saw Cross County while they were driving by and it looked beautiful.”
