The developer of Maria Fareri Children”™s Hospital at Westchester Medical Center has unveiled plans for an approximately $500 million, 2-million-square-foot health and science park on an 80-acre site adjoining the medical center”™s Grasslands campus in the town of Mount Pleasant.
John J. Fareri, president and CEO of Fareri Associates in Greenwich, Conn., said his proposed project would add “critical mass” to the joint effort by Westchester County officials and business leaders to develop the county”™s biomedical research industry. He said it also would create a needed commercial “downtown” for the Westchester Medical Center with a hotel, exercise facility, restaurants and small retail shops and services.
Fareri said a cornerstone of the project is a Children”™s Living Science Center, a 60,000- to 80,000-square-foot interactive health museum that would be privately funded and operated by a nonprofit entity. He described it as “an encore and extension” of the children”™s hospital named after the developer”™s 13-year-old daughter, Maria, who 16 years ago died at Westchester Medical Center of rabies from a bat bite.
Fareri raised more than $40 million from nearly 25,000 donors to build the children”™s hospital, which opened in 2004. The family-centered facility has become a model for children”™s hospitals internationally, he said.
The project site is near Westchester”™s largest research park for biotech companies, The Landmark at Eastview, where owner Biomed Realty Trust Inc. plans to expand its approximately 1.1 million square feet of office and laboratory space. Fareri said his planned development, nearly double the Landmark”™s existing leased space, will complement that biotech center and the New York Medical College”™s redevelopment of a nearby vacant lab building as a regional center for disaster medicine and potentially as a business incubator for startup private companies engaged in biomedical research.
Fareri owns 20 acres of the proposed site, northwest of the main Westchester Medical Center campus. The county owns the remaining 60 acres. “It”™s perfect for a biotech research park,” he said, and its tenants will benefit from “cross-pollination” with the medical center and New York Medical College.
The Greenwich developer recently presented his early plans for the health and science park to the housing, planning and operations committee of the county Board of Legislators. The full board is expected to consider legislation authorizing the administration of County Executive Robert P. Astorino to negotiate a long-term lease for the property. The lease agreement would require approval from the Board of Legislators.
Board of Legislators Chairman Kenneth Jenkins, D-Yonkers, leader of a Democratic majority that often has clashed with Astorino and his Republican administration, in a press release said Fareri”™s project is a “perfect opportunity to create a positive collaboration between two branches of county government to benefit the residents of Westchester for many years to come.”
Fareri said the development also could include medical offices and a nursing school. “It”™s going to be somewhat flexible to meet the demand of the marketplace,” he said. “There are endless possibilities, but all of this will be related to health, biotech and medical-type facilities.”
He estimated construction will take five to seven years and create about 3,500 jobs. The completed development will create 5,000 permanent full-time jobs, he said, and generate an estimated $6 million yearly in property tax revenue for Mount Pleasant and the county.
