A Yonkers shopping center is suing an adjacent shopping center for access to a private road it says it has used unhindered, until recently, for 58 years.
Central Plaza Associates is asking Westchester Supreme Court to order Urban Edge Properties to allow access to its private road, in a complaint filed on Nov. 19.
Central Plaza Associates “seeks only to obtain … relief,” the lawsuit states, “that maintains the status quo that has existed for more than five decades.”
Central Plaza Associates is an affiliate of  Lerner Properties, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. It owns Central Plaza Shopping Center at 2542 Central Park Ave.
An affiliate of Urban Edge Properties, of Midtown Manhattan, owns Yonkers Gateway Shopping Center at 2458 Central Park Ave.
Urban Edge owns a private road between the two properties that connects to both shopping centers, including driveways and parking lots in front of and behind Central Plaza Shopping Center. (Both shopping centers also have entrances and exists at opposite ends of their properties.)
Tenants, customers, and vendors have used the private road without interruption since 1967, according to the complaint, during its tenure under Central Plaza Associates and previous owners.
But on Oct. 22, without warning, large concrete barriers were installed at the driveways that connect to the private road. It was the same day that a Lidle’s Supermarket held a grand opening, the complaint states, and on the verge of the holiday season.
Central Park Associates alleges that the action was timed to cause chaos and to force it to pay “an extortionate sum” to reopen access to its driveways. (The lawsuit does not state whether Urban Edge has in fact demanded anything for access.)
The barricades were removed on Oct. 23, according to the complaint, on orders by the Yonkers police and fire departments, purportedly because the barriers made it difficult for emergency vehicles to access the property. Central Park Associates also claims that the barriers impeded delivery trucks that need room to maneuver.
Urban Edge, the complaint states, has threatened to barricade the driveways again.
Central Park Associates has no formal agreement granting use of the private road. But it argues that by openly using the road for decades, by displaying it on government documents, and by Urban Edge’s silence about the use, it has an easement.
It is asking the court to declare that its customers, tenants and vendors have a right to use the private road, and to permanently stop Urban Edge from blocking its driveways.
White Plains attorney Peter S. Dawson, of DelBello Donnellan Weingarten Wise & Wiederkehr, said Urban Edge does not have any comment about the lawsuit at this time.
Central Park Associates is represented by White Plains attorneys Joshua E. Kimerling and Seth M. Pavsner, of the Cuddy & Feder law firm.
