Development expert Michael W. Freimuth crossed the border from Connecticut seven months ago to take a new job in city government. He works still for a Long Island Sound community, but the delicate balancing act that engages him at the end of his morning commute is new.
Freimuth in his home state directed the city offices of economic development and intergovernmental affairs in Stamford. Before that he directed the city of Bridgeport”™s planning and economic development office. In March he began work in New Rochelle as development commissioner for the city of about 75,000 residents. Extolling Freimuth”™s intelligence and expertise, New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson called him “one of the best hires we”™ve made here.”
“New Rochelle is an old-line city,” Freimuth said recently at his City Hall office. “Its development patterns are classic inner-ring suburb” tied to the railroad that is its lifeline to New York City. “As a consequence, it has kind of an old-economy look to it,” he said, unlike an “edge city” such as White Plains.
“The two communities I was in in Connecticut were more pro-growth,” he said. “New Rochelle favors growth, but it”™s more of a balancing of community development ”“ parks, neighborhoods, infrastructure ”“ with commercial development.”
The city is more focused on community than economic development, he said. As development overseer, Freimuth said he must balance “a blend of priorities in New Rochelle that you wouldn”™t find in the major cities of Connecticut. That”™s the nature of the beast.”
Trying to restart LeCount, Echo Bay projects
Freimuth entered a city in which two major development projects, LeCount Square and Echo Bay, have been stalled by the economic downturn and dry-up of construction financing.
In the downtown business district, LeCount Square, an approximately 1-million-square-foot, mixed-use redevelopment first proposed several years ago, could be pronounced dead by city officials at the end of this year if its developer, Cappelli Enterprises Inc., shows no progress toward an agreement with the U.S. Postal Service. The city”™s main post office occupies a corner of the proposed one-square-block development and would be relocated.
“Clearly the post office specifically and the state of the economy generally present challenges to this project,” Bramson said recently. In his State of the City address earlier this year, the mayor urged the developer to explore alternatives to move LeCount Square toward a groundbreaking, such as scaling back its dimensions and accommodating the post office within the project.
With three months left on Cappelli”™s oft-extended development rights agreement with the city, LeCount Square is “problematic,” said Joseph Apicella, executive vice president at Cappelli Enterprises in Valhalla. Postal Service officials “have been very, very difficult to deal with,” he said. “That”™s been the greatest impediment to the redevelopment of that site, without question.”
Apicella said the developer last met with postal officials about 1-1/2 to two years ago.
Apicella said the Cappelli company has spent $16 million to $17 million to date on the stalled project. Owners of one vacated building for which the developer signed a purchase option contract have brought a multimillion-dollar lawsuit seeking payment from Cappelli.
Freimuth said Forest City Residential Group, the city”™s chosen developer of Echo Bay, a mixed-use project on 27 waterfront acres, this fall will present the city a modified plan for the site. The developer has until mid-January of next year to hand city officials a draft environmental impact statement for the stalled project, which included a mix of luxury apartments, townhouses and condos with small retail shops and a community center.
Freimuth said Forest City “is hitting the refresh button” on the project. “Financing and the economy just don”™t allow for it as originally envisioned.”
In other projects around the nation, Forest City has shown “a tenaciousness” in riding out market cycles that bodes well for New Rochelle, Freimuth said. Echo Bay, he said, “is looked on as a longer-term vision than LeCount was.”
Other projects starting up in city
While those two projects have received much attention, “We don”™t have all our eggs in any one basket,” Bramson said of the city”™s economic development planning. He noted the city council is about to select from four developers bidding to redevelop two downtown parking lots for a mid-rise residential and retail building and expanded public parking.
Freimuth said one of the city”™s greatest assets is the Metro-North Railroad station at the New Rochelle Transportation Center. It is the only station in Westchester County that links to both Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal, he noted. “It”™s a direct link to both ends of Manhattan. It”™s an asset that”™s not fully appreciated.”
Freimuth said the city”™s new sustainability plan will focus 65 percent of development within one-half mile of the transportation center. Ninety percent of development will be sited either within that half-mile radius or in areas with a direct mass-transit link to the station.
“The train station becomes the centrifugal focus in the city,” he said. “It will be a long-term enabler for the city”™s growth.”
New Ro needs to take advantage of assets
New Rochelle”™s college-town identity also should be a prime economic force, Freimuth said. The city offers “intellectual capital that Westchester County needs to build on,” he said.
The city”™s other great asset is its waterfront. “It”™s desirable to developers of any ilk, size and shape,” he said. “They want to be on it.”
One enduring object of developers”™ desire on the Sound is Davids Island, site of the former Fort Slocum, a Civil War-era U.S. Army base that closed in the 1960s and was demolished in recent years by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The abandoned island has long been an object of contention between environmentalists and developers.
City officials this summer took a new approach to planning for the island”™s reuse with the creation of a Davids Island task force. Freimuth said the task force, which began its work this month with tours of the island, will present a report to City Council in late spring of 2011.
“The idea behind the task force is to build a kind of community concept where we can balance this open space-development dichotomy,” Freimuth said. “There are some folks who simply want it to go back to nature. Others see great potential for residential development.”
Whether Davids Island will emerge from the mists of contentious history as a revitalized piece of New Rochelle is uncertain, both the mayor and the city”™s development chief said.
“It falls into the can-I-get-this-done-in-my-career column,” Freimuth said.
