Richard Pesin, executive vice president and director of development for Forest City Ratner Cos., stands in what will be a 12-screen movie theater.
Another city is literally rising in Yonkers.
Ridge Hill is its name as well as its location.
Long the former home of Loral Electronic Systems, the only remaining original structures on the 81 acres are the 240,000-square-foot headquarters building, a smokestack next to the Thruway and a white, bubble-topped water tower with the faded blue LORAL trademark, long a landmark along the Sprain Brook Parkway. It too will soon be brought down to make way for a parking garage.
The 1.2 million-square-foot project that had its groundbreaking a week after Thanksgiving in November 2007 is today a dusty hotbed of activity as 400 construction workers ride giant earthmovers, weld steel, carry pipe, install facades and create curbing for future roads.
Richard Pesin stands next to a model that is one/twelfth scale of the project.
The estimated cost of the project is $685.5 million, according to developer Forest City Ratner Cos. (FCRC). In August 2007, FCRC closed on a $630 million construction loan, which marked the largest single construction loan in the company”™s 20-year history.
The developer estimates annual sales tax revenue at $24.2 million.
Once completed, Ridge Hill will be a mixed-use, open air shopping center, similar to the 147-acre Victoria Gardens in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., which FCRC opened in 2004.
The Main Street or “street experience” of the Ridge Hill project as Richard Pesin puts it, will open in spring 2011. Pesin, executive vice president and director of development for Brooklyn-based FCRC, said Ridge Hill will borrow from the classic town center, with a landscaped town square and a pedestrian-friendly streetscape. The public space that will be created, Pesin said, will allow for community events such as Christmas tree lightings, farmers markets and so forth.
The anchors for the retail aspect are Saks Fifth Avenue, Whole Foods and Cinema De Lux. Also signing on for retail space are L.L. Bean, Ann Taylor Loft, Cheesecake Factory, New York & Co. and Sephora. L.L. Bean and Whole Foods will be freestanding buildings, with the grocer taking up about 60,000 square feet.
About 1,000 residential units on the property are being developed separately by Horizon Group.
The top two floors of the existing Loral building will be leased out as office space. The ground floor will be gutted and rebuilt for retail space. The purpose for that is to maintain the streetscape, Pesin said.
Initial questions raised about road placement and fire protection when the project was in its planning stage have been answered.
FCRC agreed to contribute up to $3 million for a new firehouse when the city builds it, “but not necessarily on this site,” Pesin said.
Entrances to Ridge Hill will come via an existing road off the Thruway as well as a new entrance off Tuckahoe Road near the Sprain Brook Parkway. A bridge is being built across the Thruway to allow shoppers to head south. Currently, in exiting the property, there is only a northbound exit on the Thruway. And the only way to enter the site from the Sprain is to exit at Tuckahoe Road and then enter the Thruway.
To offer some perspective as to the scale of the retail project, The Westchester in White Plains is about 900,000 square feet.
“We think we complement Cross County (Shopping Center) and The Westchester. We fill a niche that is missing in Westchester County. So we believe there is plenty of room for everyone. Our studies have shown that Westchester County is under-retailed for billions of square feet, and for billions of dollars of retail trade” Pesin said.
According to the final environmental impact statement prepared by land planner Divney Tung Schwalbe L.L.P., there is room for more retail in Westchester.
In 2007, the study found there was sufficient support for an additional 4.7 million square feet of new retail space.
“Even with Ridge Hill that would leave 3.5 million square feet of supportable retail space, which shows how under-serviced the area is,” according to the report.
