Throughout the process, town officials say there has been little to no public opposition to the plans, which call for Pace to close its 35-acre Briarcliff campus and consolidate its Westchester operations at its 200-acre Pleasantville campus.
While major developments in Westchester frequently become bogged down with opposition from neighborhood associations and environmental advocates, William McGrath, senior vice president and chief administrative officer at Pace, said university officials made a strong effort to reach out to community members in the year and a half before the restructuring was announced.
“Over the last year or two we”™ve brought the neighbors in,” McGrath said. “Most of the time those coalitions (opposing a project) are immediate neighbors. Over the past year and a half or so we”™ve had meetings with them on campus. Certainly their input is factored into the plan.”
The Mount Pleasant Planning Board closed the public hearing and instituted a 30-day public comment period ending June 4. The submission of an environmental impact statement is part of the State Environmental Quality Review process.
McGrath said university officials and members of the project”™s planning and design team would then address any public comments or planning board recommendations, with the goal of submitting a final statement sometime this fall.
Ideally, he said, the final statement would be approved before the end of 2012, with the rest of the approvals process stretching into the beginning of 2013 and construction beginning in late 2013 or early 2014.
“The idea is that once you”™ve gone through this very thorough SEQR (environmental review) process, those other approvals are not very problematic,” McGrath said. “That”™s our plan now, to get approval by the end of this year, and line up contractors by the beginning of next year.”
