Carpet Mills Arts District a winner in state awards round

In his antiques-furnished office in his realty company”™s Nepperhan Design Center, Randolph Rose rolled out on a carpet a prototype banner for the new Carpet Mills Arts District in Yonkers. The tall, colorful banners will hang along the perimeter of the former Alexander Smith Carpet Mills, the nearly 2 million-square-foot, 19-building industrial complex on Nepperhan Avenue. Rose and several other building owners two years ago joined forces to brand the historic mill complex, once the city”™s largest employer, as an arts district that would draw retailers and restaurants and more art-focused tenants to their properties.

The red-brick complex already houses YoHo, a community of artists leasing work lofts at 540 and 578 Nepperhan Ave. YoHo landlord George Huang, co-owner of The Heights Real Estate Co. in Manhattan, spearheaded the arts district project with Rose.

Yonkers planning officials liked and have supported the concept pitched by the mill owners, although a needed zoning change to allow some retail uses and restaurants in ground-floor space on the sprawling site has not yet been approved by the Yonkers City Council. In December, Empire State Development officials in Albany indicated they too favored the Yonkers arts district as a revitalization initiative to draw investment, artists, arts-related businesses and tourists to the site.

In the annual round of funding for regional economic development projects, the state agency awarded Rose Realty LLC a grant of up to $500,000. It will help cover owners”™ costs this year for the artful banners, exterior lighting and other physical improvements, as well as a study of the site”™s decrepit water and sewer infrastructure near the buried Saw Mill River that runs through the property.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the complex was also envisioned as a center for new technology in addition to its arts focus in the owners”™ application to the state last summer.

Rose”™s realty company was the lead applicant for the state grant among 10 mill owners “because I was the forerunner who got this thing started,” he said. Rose with his wife and sons operates two other businesses at 500 Nepperhan Ave., The Randolph Rose Collection Inc., which specializes in custom-designed bronze sculptures, and FEA Home Inc., which restores and sells antiques and ancient works of art found and purchased by Rose and his sons in China, Japan and Southeast Asian countries.

Rose this month is awaiting more details and paperwork on the matching state grant, which will be disbursed as reimbursements for owners”™ expenditures to launch the Carpet Mills Arts District. “It may be 1 to 1, it may be 10 to 1,” he said of the funding match.

Rose”™s realty company last September closed on its purchase of another carpet mill property, the seven-story, 208,000-square-foot Worsted Building at 179 Saw Mill River Road. Built in the early 1900s, the former wool storage warehouse has only a few tenants. “I”™m looking to bring in upscale people to upgrade the area,” its new owner said.

Rose said he has turned down bids by a national auto parts retailer and a box factory to lease space in the warehouse building. “I”™m very specific,” Rose said, as to the mix of tenants he wants to attract. They include arts, home furnishings, crafts and import-export businesses.

“About 50 years ago they wanted to make that over into an outlet mall,” Rose said of the Worsted Building. An outlet mall featuring well-known furniture manufacturers and related retail businesses “would be ideal for that. I think it”™s still viable.”

Here are other private-sector development projects in the mid-Hudson region awarded state grants for 2016.

Westchester County

• SoYo Exalta LLC, a company formed in 2014 by Yonkers downtown landlord and developer Nick Sprayregen, was awarded a $1. 25 million Empire State Development grant for its planned mixed-use, transit-oriented development on Larkin Plaza opposite the city”™s Van der Donck Park. The estimated $168 million project will include 25-story and 17-story apartment towers and 40,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space. SoYo Exalta was awarded a $1 million state for the project in the state”™s 2014 funding round.

Dutchess County

• Kearney Realty & Development Group in Carmel was awarded a $300,000 Empire State Development (ESD) grant for Queen City Lofts, a four-story, 85,000-square-foot mixed-use development to be built on vacant land in downtown Poughkeepsie. The project will add 72 low-rent residences, including 40 reserved for artists, and six commercial spaces.

• Rhinebeck Village Place LLC of Skaneateles was awarded a $307,550 grant from ESD”™s Market New York program for its Mirbeau Inn Rhinebeck, a 50-room hotel, spa and restaurant featuring farm-to-table dining and craft beverages from the Hudson Valley region. The tourism-focused development is expected to create 90 or more permanent full-time-equivalent jobs, according to state officials.

• TRex Capital Group LLC of New York City was awarded two ESD grants totaling $2.25 million for Bellefield at Hyde Park, a mixed-use development including two hotels with 250 rooms, a 15,000-square-foot spa, 48,000 square feet of retail space and 40 units of market-rate rental housing across from the Culinary Institute of America campus.

• Merlin Entertainments PLC, a British company, was awarded a $1 million ESD grant for infrastructure and site work for its proposed Legoland New York theme park in the Hudson Valley. Rebuffed in Haverstraw, where the company first planned to locate its development, Merlin reportedly is considering sites in Orange County and other locations outside New York City this year. In the 2014 round of state awards, the British company”™s U.S. division, Merlin Entertainments Group US Holdings Inc., was awarded $3.1 million toward site development for its planned theme park resort in Rockland County.

Orange County

• Zheng Da Construction LLC in Cuddebackville was awarded a $100,000 ESD grant for its project to repurpose New Hope Farms, a former equestrian facility in Port Jervis, as a film and television production facility that state officials said will attract direct foreign investment into New York.

Sullivan County  

• Empire State Cooperage LLC in Roscoe was awarded a $1 million grant from ESD to build a stave mill and cooperage to satisfy the increasing demand for oak barrels from distillers and wineries in New York and across the nation.

Ulster County

• Bardavon 1869 Opera House Inc. in Kingston was awarded a $500,000 development grant from the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation for the final phases of a construction project to restore the 1,510-seat Ulster Performing Arts Center in Kingston.

• BBG Ventures LLC was awarded a $1 million ESD grant for its planned redevelopment of the former Woolworth”™s building in Kingston as a food and beverage manufacturing facility, commercial kitchen and business incubator, food education center, fresh-food supermarket and venue for cafes showcasing locally sourced foods, according to state officials.

• Shadowland Artists Inc. was awarded a $200,000 grant from the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal”™s Rural Area Revitalization Projects fund for the renovation of a 5,300-square-foot building in Ellenville as a second stage venue for the village”™s Shadowland Theatre.

• Turk Hospitality Group in Highland was awarded two grants totaling a$1.75 million from ESD for its proposed Wildberry Lodge development, an indoor water park, resort and conference center in New Paltz.