Condemned to limbo
Faced with a new prospect that their downtown properties will be condemned soon, Yonkers landlords and commercial building owners hurried last week to find lawyers expert in the ways of eminent domain. And business tenants in retail stores and auto garages off Getty Square worried how they would survive a downtown economic revival in which they might not have a place.
“They”™re screwing everybody here, that”™s what they”™re doing, in plain English,” said Charles Miller, owner of Lynx Air Conditioning at 33 John St. “I think they”™re pulling a real shrewd deal.”
Miller owns the one-story brick building his business occupies on a downtown corner that overlooks Chicken Island, a sprawling public parking lot where a complex of retail stores and movie theaters, a 6,500-seat sports stadium and two residential towers might someday rise if market conditions improve and credit loosens for Struever Fidelco Cappelli L.L.C., developer of the proposed River Park Center. Near his property runs the Saw Mill River, where city officials and SFC plan to create a public river walk as part of the River Park Center development.
The Yonkers Industrial Development Agency agreed recently, pending a public hearing, to use its power of eminent domain to acquire some of the 13 private properties needed to make way for the river walk and Saw Mill daylighting project if owners do not sell voluntarily. The purchases, initially estimated at $11 million to $12 million, would be made with state grant money by the New Main Street Development Corp. (NMSDC), a nonprofit arm of city government formed last year.
Previously SFC had negotiated purchase options directly with landlords surrounding the River Park center site. City officials last year said the newly formed NMSDC”™s role would allow the city to retain control over the parcels if SFC, like other downtown developers before, did not deliver on the project.
Â
Â
A few years ago, Miller said, he accepted SFC”™s purchase offer of $1,080,000 for his property. The developer made a down payment and later began paying Miller $1,000 a month to stay in the building as the development was delayed, he said.
In September, SFC notified Miller and others who had signed purchase option agreements that it was canceling the contracts. Owners were told to return SFC”™s down payments. In October, the Yonkers City Council approved a land disposition agreement with SFC that spells out the roles of the city IDA and NMSDC in acquiring private parcels for the project.
Miller said NMSDC offered $700,000 for his property, 35 percent below SFC”™s option price, if he agreed to the offer by Dec. 1. “For that price, I might as well stay,” he said. “I didn”™t even answer them when they sent me that.” He was in contact with a Manhattan law firm that works exclusively in condemnation law.
Miller”™s business neighbor, Antone Daoud, owner of Star Auto Service Inc., also had his 2006 purchase agreement for his auto repair garage and gas station canceled by SFC. The Jordanian native said he has not received a new offer. He was awaiting a visit from an independent appraiser hired by NMSDC.
Â
Daoud said six business owners on the east side of the proposed project were banding together to retain a Manhattan attorney in the eminent domain proceedings. “We want to exhaust all options first,” he said. “If they come up with the right number, we have no choice but to leave.” If NMSDC”™s offered price is too low, Daoud said he is prepared to fight in court.
Â
With three children in college, the 50-year-old Daoud is worried about his livelihood if forced to relocate after 17 years in business at the corner of Elm and New School streets. City officials say they want to keep relocated businesses downtown, but Daoud sees no place for his operation.
“You relocate a salon, you relocate a fish market, but you can”™t relocate a gas station,” he said. Also, “All my customers are from the neighborhood. How are you going to relocate the customers?”
“If it comes to me, I don”™t want to sell here. I want to stay here.”
At La Raza Auto Repair on John Street, shop owner Maximino Negrete said landlords will be paid for their properties, but he and other business tenants have been ignored by city officials. “Nobody”™s coming around to talk to the tenants,” he said. “I”™m afraid. I have my home, I have my family. Who is going to pay my mortgage?”
“I”™ve been here 15 years,” Negrete said. He does not know where he could relocate his repair business. “I look sometimes all over Yonkers ”“ no place for a garage.”
Yonkers City Council Member Patricia McDow, whose 1st District includes the downtown Getty Square and Chicken Island area, said she was the only NMSDC board member who recently voted against the use of eminent domain. She said she did not know SFC had cancelled its purchase agreements with property owners when last month she joined the council majority approving the city”™s land agreement with the developer.
“One thing about business,” said McDow, herself a business entrepreneur, “if you don”™t plan, you plan to fail. These people, they can”™t plan,” she said of owners awaiting word on relocation. “They don”™t know where they”™re going to be.”
Â
Â
McDow said while financial assistance programs exist for displaced landlords, she has found nothing available for tenants. “There should be some mechanism put in place for these individuals, some kind of protection should be put in place for everyone concerned, especially when they are the sole income earner in their households,” she said.
McDow addressed what city officials have not publicly acknowledged about SFC”™s downtown redevelopment project and the small retail businesses that abound on the streets that radiate from Getty Square. “To be realistic, some of these stores are not going to be appropriate when this development is completed,” she said. “It”™s going to be very difficult for these stores to stay.”
McDow said some business owners could adapt, for example, by combining a nail salon and a hair salon into a full-service salon or turning a variety store into a souvenir store peddling merchandise tied to the minor league team that could move into the new stadium.
At Foto Arts on New Main Street, business owner Soon Woo Back is waiting to see whether tenants like herself will be financially compensated if forced to move.
“We cannot just go out like that,” she said. “We are hoping that they pay us a little money to survive. We need something also. When we started the business, we put a lot of money into it. All these people,” she said of business tenants affected by the project, “their whole life and their money went into it.”
Her brother-in-law and landlord, Hi Jong Lee, a pharmacist who with his wife emigrated from South Korea to Yonkers in the early 1970s when foreign-trained pharmacists were sought to meet a professional shortage in the U.S., owns Stanley Pharmacy on South Broadway and three commercial buildings on New Main Street needed for the River Park Center project. SFC made a good offer but canceled the contract in September, Soon Woo said. Lee refused to sign and return NMSDC”™s purchase offer because it was not a legal document, she said.
A teacher in South Korea, Soon Woo arrived in Yonkers with her family in 1980. Five years later, she took over the Foto Arts business. In the age of digital cameras, it has evolved from a photo developing and frame business into a document photocopy center for the neighborhood”™s Mexican immigrants and eclectic variety store stocked with phone equipment, toys, backpacks and party balloons. A 53-year-old divorced mother, “I work six days a week, 9 to 6,” she said.
“I don”™t think I could relocate the business around here,” she said. “There”™s no place to go, plus I don”™t think I could make a business in this town.” She would have to pay higher rent in a new downtown location, she said.
With River Park Center, “New business will have to come, franchises, like they do in White Plains. I think that”™s what they”™re trying to create ”“ making another White Plains.”
“The small business cannot survive right now,” Soon Woo said. “We will have to move on to something else.”