White Hickory Associates LLC, a related entity of the Robert Martin Company, has received approval from the Town of Greenburgh to build a 56,525-square-foot building that would contain 292 self-storage units within the Premier Plaza Shopping Center at 630 White Plains Road.
The Greenburgh Planning Board had recommended that the Town Board approve a special permit and the projects amended site plan so that construction can move forward. The self-storage building would be constructed in a section of the shopping center property that had been previously approved for the construction of an office building. The footprint would be the same as had been planned for the office building.
The shopping center was built in 2012 on a property of approximately 16.67 acres located on the south side of White Plains Road, across from the intersection of White Plains Road and Benedict Avenue. It is located in the OB Office Building zoning district.
Attorney Janet Giris of the White Plains-based law firm DelBello Donnellan Weingarten Wise & Wiederkehr LLP told the Town Board, “You may remember back in February of 2011 you granted approvals for construction of a mixed-use development on this property in two phases.
“The first phase was the construction of the Stop & Shop supermarket with some additional administrative office space and approximately 30,000 square feet of retail space and some additional commercial space which was to be used as a bank or restaurant space. The second phase of the project was for the construction of a five-story building containing some at-grade retail and restaurant space and office space on the four floors above.”
Giris said that the first phase was completed and is fully operating but the second phase was not completed.
“We came before the Town Board in the fall,” Giris said. “The Town Board adopted some modifications to the OB and the LOB district regulations to allow self-storage in those districts. We presented this exact plan to the Town Board at that time and everybody took a look at it.”
Giris said that 19 off-street parking spaces and four loading spaces would be provided to service the building.
The Planning Board had asked the developer to revise the plan slightly to include a dedicated pedestrian crosswalk from the parking area to the self-storage building. Giris said that they will be working with the town’s staff to include what the Planning Board wanted, saying it could be in any location that the town’s planning commissioner thinks is appropriate.
Greg Berger, president of Robert Martin Company, told the Business Journal, “Office building demand obviously has diminished over the last two years, not even because of Covid. The demand for it was diminishing. I think self-storage for this particular use is very complementary in a shopping center because self-storage typically requires very little parking and the demand for it has been extensive.”
Berger said they have had discussions with various operators of self-storage facilities and likely would make a deal with a specialist in the field rather then operating the facility themselves.
“I think self-storage in general over the years has evolved in terms of the aesthetics. We’re in a shopping center and this will be visible because it will be several stories but it will be attractive,” Berger said.
Berger said that at the moment Robert Martin has no plans for other additions to the Premier Plaza site and continues doing well with its existing portfolio of more than six million square feet of properties and 200 acres of developable land even with effects of the pandemic.
“We have close to 300 tenants and we’ve done well and have been working with some tenants that are struggling,” Berger said. “I think we are starting to see people now come out of their cars, come out of their homes, come out of their seats. I think in the last 30 days we’ve seen an uptick in that. I would say probably up until early- to mid-August we focused a lot on renewals and keeping tenants floating, keeping them alive, the ones that were struggling. But, for the most part, we’ve been very successful with our collections and keeping our tenants in place.”
Berger said that part of the success in this difficult period relates to the fact that about 90% of Robert Martin’s portfolio is in industrial and flex space.
“I’m pretty bullish. I think Covid obviously will have some shelf life. This it not going away overnight and the impact will be felt. But Westchester is in a pretty good position,” Berger said.
