New Rochelle”™s decision to scrap a development project on Echo Bay has sent officials back to the drawing board after a long and often scrutinized relationship with developer Forest City Residential Inc.
The end of the project comes after a decade of planning, re-planning and increasing community resistance that boiled over at several City Council meetings this year. Forest City representatives said they would not comment further than a written statement that said the project had “promised to be a new waterfront for New Rochelle.”
“We put an enormous amount of resources towards executing the city”™s vision for Echo Bay and we”™re disheartened that it won”™t come to fruition,” the statement said.
The City Council voted Nov. 26 to reject a land disposition agreement that would have transferred city-owned land over to Forest City. Mayor Noam Bramson, a Democrat, was the sole dissenter in a 6-1 vote.
Bramson said he was disappointed by the outcome.
“But New Rochelle remains fully committed to improving our waterfront and downtown, and it”™s our job now to focus on the future,” he said.
Councilman Lou Trangucci, a Republican, took issue with the reduced scope of the development and also with expected tax breaks for the developer. A recent analysis of the project by the National Development Council estimated that at full assessment the property would incur $1.5 million in property taxes, but an anticipated payment in lieu of taxes was $859,000, or $654,000 less than what the full tax bill would have been. The report said that paying full assessment or even a larger PILOT might have meant the project would not be financially feasible for Forest City.
“I just don”™t feel this is appropriate for the taxpayers, I don”™t feel it”™s appropriate for the city,” Trangucci said. “This is not a project that fits what I think what the people of New Rochelle believe should be there.”
The defeat of the proposal and a number of unanswered questions are sure to cast a shadow as the city rethinks its approach. Council members will now likely need to reach consensus not only on the size, scope and funding of any potential development, but also about the fate of an unused armory and an active city public works yard at the proposed project site.
It is unclear if and when discussions would begin again about potential development. Bramson, at a recent council meeting, said his ideas for the Echo Bay area had been rejected and so he placed the subject with his colleagues, urging them to eventually share their visions for future development there.
Forest City, an affiliate of Cleveland-based Forest City Enterprises, first conceived the project as a $450 million, 26-acre project that would include 710 residences, 150,000 square feet of retail and two 150-room hotels. The original proposal called for knocking down the armory and replacing it with a community center, an idea that drew protests from veterans and other city residents who wanted the building preserved.
The development plans lost steam in late 2008, just as the worst of the economic recession was taking hold. When the project re-emerged in 2010, it was in a new, more tentative market, and Forest City modified its plan to focus more on the site of the public works yard, which is set to be relocated and must either be moved or rebuilt due to its condition, according to officials.
Early on, the city had said it would be slightly cheaper to relocate the yard than to rebuild at the same site, with both price tags hovering around $13 million. Those costs have since inflated. The developer had planned to contribute $2.5 million to the cost of the move, with another $1.5 million coming from a state grant, though the entire purchase of new property and construction could cost upward of $30 million.
Robert Cox, a resident who vocally opposed the project, said that the growing cost of the move and the fact that the city yard was a valuable plot of land meant New Rochelle government should seek a higher return for it. He had asked the city to start the bidding process anew.
“Let”™s go back to the original conversations,” Cox, who runs the blog Talk of the Sound, said. “We went through the Great Recession, the property market seems to have stabilized ”¦ lending is occurring, we”™ve kind of gotten through that whole devaluation of properties and credit crunch. There very well may be new players.”
The ultimate fate of the former naval armory property remains unclear. Last year, the city agreed to a proposal from a nonprofit group called Good Profit to convert the armory into a market, but the group failed to meet a deadline to pay the city a $50,000 fee and sign a letter of agreement for the project.
In June, the city launched a competition to find a designer-developer for the armory. Four semifinalists, all based in New York City, were chosen out of 28 initial applicants. City officials said they would announce the winner this month.
The closing of the book on the current proposal came after the opposition to the project grew increasingly fierce in recent months. Residents formed a group called United Citizens for a Better New Rochelle specifically to oppose the project. Hundreds of the group”™s “No Echo Bay” signs were posted throughout the city and a protest was held at City Hall Nov. 12 just before a chaotic City Council meeting.
Mayor Bramson said he believed the high emotions of the project may have been less about the actual proposal and more about larger disputes and divisions in the city. He said a lesson should be that elected officials and the public debate more civilly in the future, noting that continued divisiveness and infighting might scare away potential future investors from New Rochelle development. “Let”™s conduct every public debate as if our children are watching,” he said.
Adam Egelberg, a founding member of the anti-Echo Bay civic group, said in a written statement that its members recognize the hard work begins now. “It”™s easy to say no to something, it”™s much harder to say yes,” he said. “Our goal is to work with the City Council to promote sound development in our city.”
this time- let’s begin with a plan that starts with the Waterfront, not that treats it as a sidebar walkway to nowhere.