With White Plains city officials”™ approval in hand, a Stamford, Conn., developer plans to break ground this fall on a $25 million, approximately 50,000-square-foot retail and restaurant complex on Bloomingdale Road.
The Venue on Bloomingdale Road will include 42,000 square feet of space for brand-name boutique retailers and specialty shops and a 6,000-square-foot restaurant and outdoor café, said a spokesman for Core Plus Properties L.L.C, the Stamford-based owner and developer of the 6.6-acre site at 120 Bloomingdale Road.
The property, opposite Bloomingdale”™s department store in the upscale Bloomindgale Avenue retail corridor, includes a 145,000-square-foot office building, the former headquarters of Nestle USA, whose largest tenant is the New York State Department of Labor. The Venue will be built   on what is now a surface parking lot for the office building.
A two-level parking garage will be part of the complex, which will have 501 parking spaces. During construction, on-site valet parking will be available for office-building tenants and visitors, a Core Plus spokesman said.
Designed by the Arrowstreet Inc. architectural firm of Somerville, Mass., The Venue will incorporate “green” technologies and efficient heating and cooling systems to minimize its carbon footprint. The entire Bloomingdale Road frontage will be lined with an extensive landscaped garden and trees. Rainwater will be captured and used to irrigate the landscaped grounds. The developer in cooperation with the city of White Plains also will plant specimen trees along Bloomingdale Road.
“The Venue will be a perfect fit within this very strong, upscale retail area,” said Frank Gallo, managing director of Core Plus. “We have approached the site with special care to assure that we create a project that will not only complement the existing retail environment but that will enhance the entire surrounding area.”
With plans approved by the city, Gallo said he expected the “tremendous” interest in the site already shown by prospective retail tenants and restaurant operators to increase. “There are very few locations that offer what Bloomingdale Road in White Plains does, and prospective tenants are acutely aware of that,” he said.
Core Plus officials estimated The Venue will create about 80 construction jobs and 200 permanent jobs when completed. It is expected to generate about $600,000 in sales taxes and $250,000 in property taxes annually to the city.
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Core Plus Properties is a 5-year-old private real estate company with a portfolio of commercial properties in metropolitan New York and Washington, D.C., valued at more than $300 million. The Stamford developer”™s financial partner in the project is Black Rock Inc., a New York City-based public investment management firm with $1.357 trillion in assets under management at the start of 2008.
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