Tuckahoe hotel project gains Westchester IDA support
An Eastchester developer plans to meet a need for visitor lodgings in southern Westchester County with a $25 million project that will bring a five-story, 163-room SpringHill Suites by Marriott Hotel to a vacant industrial site in Tuckahoe.
William B. Weinberg, principal of Bilwin Development Affiliates L.L.C. in Eastchester, told Westchester County Industrial Development Agency directors Thursday that the project at 109-125 Marbledale Road will create 200 construction jobs and 80 permanent jobs in Tuckahoe. The 91,000-square-foot hotel will rise on an environmentally contaminated site that has been used as a marble quarry and later as a landfill dump.
Weinberg said the hotel will also include a 6,400-square-foot restaurant and 1,000 square feet of meeting space.
His limited partner in the hotel development company is Jack Adler, principal and co-founder of AGM Hospitality Group and former president and chief operating officer of Loews Hotels. “There”™s a real dearth of hotels in this area,” which also includes Bronxville, Eastchester and Scarsdale, Weinberg told the IDA board. “If anyone wants to come to visit, there”™s nowhere to stay.”
Developers in Yonkers have also moved to fill the county”™s hospitality gap with three hotel projects either under construction or planned in the city. Weinberg said competing hotels in Yonkers that opened in 2009 are seeing occupancy rates in the mid- to high-80 percent range.
Weinberg told the IDA board that a market study done for his company showed a hotel in Tuckahoe will attract lodgers. “Basically I could build two of these hotels and fill them,” he said.
Weinberg said he hopes to break ground in six months after receiving village approvals for the project. Construction is expected to be completed in 18 months.
The county IDA board gave its preliminary approval Thursday to $1.2 million in tax exemptions for the Tuckahoe project, including $960,000 in sales tax exemptions for construction purchases and a $240,000 mortgage recording tax exemption. The IDA will schedule a public hearing on the proposed tax breaks.
County IDA directors also gave their preliminary approval of tax exemptions for Rivertowns Square, a $52.5 million, approximately 130,000-square-foot mixed-use development in Dobbs Ferry by Armonk-based Saber Dobbs Ferry L.L.C.
Martin Berger, principal of Saber Dobbs Ferry, told IDA directors the project, which adjoins Chauncey Square Shopping Center near the intersection of Saw Mill River Parkway and Lawrence Avenue, will include a 123-room Hilton Hotel. Sundance Cinemas L.L.C., a California-based company owned by actor and director Robert Redford, will invest $12 million in the build-out of an eight-screen, approximately 34,000-sqaure-foot cinema complex on the site, the company”™s first East Coast venture. Owners of Mrs. Green”™s Natural Market will invest $5 million in the 18,000-square-foot grocery that will open in leased space at Rivertowns Square, Berger said. He said a 202-unit luxury apartment building on the site will be separately developed by an affiliate of Dallas-based Lincoln Property Co.
The development will create 475 construction jobs and 660 permanent jobs.
The IDA board tentatively approved approximately $1.6 million in tax breaks for Saber Dobbs Ferry, including $1,062,180 in county sales tax exemptions and a $547,222 mortgage recording tax exemption.
The county IDA also approved $329,250 in tax breaks for a $6 million renovation project at 101 E. Post Road in White Plains.
Paul Guillaro, president and CEO of Unicorn Contracting Inc. in Garrison, the building owner, said the vacant four-story office building will be fully renovated and could accommodate either multiple tenants or a single tenant. The project is expected to create 50 to 60 construction jobs and could add 150 to 200 permanent jobs to the downtown business district.
The IDA board approved $251,250 in sale tax exemptions during construction and a $78,000 mortgage recording tax exemption for Unicorn Contracting.