The anticipation of the new Tappan Zee Bridge has Nyack business owners, residents, officials and Realtors dwelling less on the traffic headaches and thinking more of the possibilities for growth throughout the village.
With construction on the twin-span bridge on the Hudson River entering its fourth year, the optimism voiced by Nyack villagers evoked the classic line from the movie “Field of Dreams” ”” “If you build it, he will come.”
The $3.9 billion bridge project is just one piece ”” though undoubtedly the largest ”” of the development underway or envisioned in the village of about 7,000 people.
Recently completed projects include the new waterfront skate park and a nearby viewing platform that transformed an old fishing pier, both of which have been major attractions since they opened late last year, said Nyack Mayor Jennifer L. White.
“We”™ve seen a huge uptick in people coming to the village because they actually want to see what”™s going on,” she said of the bridge work. “It”™s amazing how interested people are in watching this amazing construction project.”
Despite that, White and others, including Michael Taraboulos, an associate broker with the Rand Realty commercial division, agree that the commercial corridor in downtown Nyack has stayed about the same.
“Retail traffic has been about the same as it would be with or without the construction,” Taraboulos said. “Crews have come into town and made up for any people that are not doing shopping in the Nyack area because of their perceived impact from the bridge.”
Lisa Litman, owner of Sign of the Times, a gift shop at 112 Main St. in downtown Nyack, said her business has seen little effect, good or bad, from the bridge construction.
“I”™m hoping that in the long run it does (affect business). Once it”™s really done, people are going to come over and make a day of it because with the new viewing area and the whole thing down at the park, I”™m hoping it becomes a destination,” Litman said.
Taraboulos said once the bridge is fully open, which is expected in spring 2018, “there will be more potential for more traffic into Nyack and more bicycle and foot traffic into the Nyack commercial zone” as well as more development in the village.
White said the village is expected to grow by about 1,500 residents in the next five years, an increase that she and many business owners welcome.
“The bridge is causing the major development, which is causing people to see Nyack as maybe more than it is today because of what it will be in five years,” said Daniel Kramer, owner of Art Cafe of Nyack at 65 S. Broadway.
Village officials are reviewing a proposal by TZ Vista LLC, an affiliate of Helmer-Cronin Construction Inc. of Stony Point, to clean up and develop a 3.4-acre brownfield site on the waterfront at 55 Gedney St. as a 120-unit luxury condominium complex. Some residents oppose the developer”™s proposal to build three glass-and-steel six-story buildings on the site between the Nyack Boat Club and Clermont Condominiums, citing the obstructed views of the river the development would create.
In March, the Time Nyack hotel is scheduled to open at 400 High Ave. in a former two-story factory converted and expanded into a four-story inn with 133 industrial-style loft units. The approximately $19 million project is being developed by WY Management LLC, a boutique hotel developer.
Kerry Wellington, co-owner of WY Management, last year said the development company is “filling a void that has been missing from the area.” Her partner at WY Management, Michael Yanko, said they are bringing “the first-ever lifestyle hotel to the Rockland area.”
Yet development also poses challenges for the village. For residents like Chris Barchuk, a co-owner of Funny Business, a comic book store at 130 Main St., parking and traffic are issues that need to be addressed.
Parking, said the downtown merchant, “has been a problem in this town since I was a kid growing up in Rockland County and it”™s still a problem 30 years later. If you”™re going to start putting in that many more people you”™re going to have to address parking in this town.”
One way of doing that, he said, would be to put a train on the new Tappan Zee bridge, which has been designed to accommodate light rail transit in the future.
“They”™re missing it by not putting a light rail,” Barchuk said. “I think that”™s the big mistake that they”™re making because that would have driven business into this town. They”™re building so it can be added, but it just seems to me like why wouldn”™t you do it? Do it, plan it out and get it done.”
White agreed and said train service across the Tappan Zee is still an option but unlikely in the near future.
“It”™s very expensive, anyway, because you have to lay all that track, you have to build all the infrastructure, the train station, where do you put it, you have a Thruway there, would there have to be some sort of elevated train ”” I don”™t know,” the mayor said.
A 31-member transit task force for the bridge released a report nearly a year ago recommending bus rapid transit on the new bridge as part of a seven-line system. In October, the state Department of Transportation was awarded a $10 million federal grant to begin developing and implementing the system.
White said she has been working to get a ferry in Nyack that would connect the village with Tarrytown and lower Manhattan. “I”™m convinced that far more people would live in Rockland County if there was an easy way for them to get to job centers,” she said.
The village is studying the potential for a ferry and has drawn interest from New York Waterway, which runs ferry services in and around New York City, and the Durst Organization, which operates New York Water Taxi.
“The ferry for at least the river villages is almost a no-brainer,” White said. “It”™s inexpensive, the infrastructure essentially nonexistent, you build some floating docks and some places for people to stand. I think that is the answer for the health of Rockland County and the future.”
