Davids Island sounded for new uses
High-density housing projects on the 78-acre island ”“ as private developers have proposed in the past ”“ also did not rank high in the year-long task force study. Along with costly infrastructure investment, those projects would require a causeway bridge to be built to the long-vacant and environmentally contaminated island at an estimated cost of $200 million.
A research institute and low-density resort, in tandem with a public park or nature reserve, ranked highest as a viable project for the island in the study group”™s weighing of social, environmental and economic impacts.
A solar energy farm, which would populate the island with photovoltaic cells generating electricity for the mainland and a projected six-year payout for the city on its energy-system investment, also received the study group”™s highest ranking.
Not all alternative energy enterprises are suited for the island, which the Army closed as a recruiting station and coastal battery in 1965. A wind turbine farm would be a “marginal” project and “would never turn a profit” on an island that is not windswept, the task force found.
New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson recently told the City Council the city”™s eventual reuse plan for the island”™s 45 developable acres could combine projects examined separately by the task force. Those scenarios also include low-density single-family houses, a medium-density housing mix, hydroponic greenhouses for food production and open parkland.
Representing a range of constituencies and clashing interests in how the island will be used as a public or private asset, the task force was headed by Douglas Hocking, New Rochelle planning board chairman and a principal at Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates P.C. (KPF). A New York City architecture firm, KPF donated to the city its Davids Island use analysis.
Task force members in a preface to the report said they aimed to help New Rochelle officials develop “a bold, community-based vision that excites the public”™s imagination and engenders the durable support necessary to sustain a long-term endeavor.”
The community approach, said task force members, should enable the city to “escape a fruitless cycle of external proposals” from developers casting for potential profit on an island that sits about 3,000 feet from the New Rochelle shore. Since the 1970s, successive developers abandoned their City Hall campaigns and retreated from New Rochelle after running into strong local opposition to their plans.
Farmed by European settlers for nearly 200 years, Davids Island became known as Fort Slocum after the Army built a military post there in 1862. Two years after Fort Slocum was deactivated, the city of New Rochelle in 1967 paid $485,000 to buy the island for redevelopment.
One year later, Consolidated Edison Co. paid $3 million to acquire the island as the site for a nuclear power plant. Opposed by local residents, Con Ed withdrew its plan and in 1976 sold back the island to the city for $1, according to the task force report. The city designated the island an urban renewal area, triggering a march of private and public developers to New Rochelle.
In 1977, the island was proposed as the site of Hotel Columbia, a complex of four 300-room hotels, a convention center, shopping and recreational space, a casino and a theater.
Four years later, Xanadu Property Associates first floated plans for a 2,000-unit luxury condominium development on the island connected by a new 3,450-foot bridge. Unable to gain support for that plan and a series of scaled-down proposals that followed, Xanadu withdrew as the island”™s designated developer in 1992.
From 1994 to 1996, Donald Trump sought to develop four luxury high-rise residences and a 1,000-slip marina on the island. He too retreated because of community opposition.
Competing with Trump”™s residential development plan, Davids Island Development Co., a consortium of smaller developers, proposed to build a family entertainment park on the island connected to the mainland by a magnetic monorail. That plan too gained no traction.
Starting in 1990, Westchester County proposed to convert the island into a waterfront park for public recreational use that would be accessible only by ferry. In 2002, the county agreed to buy the island, but the plan never moved forward.
Hocking, the task force chairman, told the city council a no-cars policy might be viable for Davids Island. Any part of the small island is within a 5-minute walk from its dock, he said.
City officials said a final reuse plan for Davids Island could be a long time coming and development likely will be done in stages. New Rochelle Development Commissioner Michael Freimuth said the island should be a component of the city”™s comprehensive plan now being prepared.
“This has got to be embedded in a holistic vision” for New Rochelle”™s future, Bramson said of the city”™s Davids Island asset.
“Every four, five or six years, somebody”™s going to come knocking with an idea for Davids Island,” the mayor said.
The task force report should give the city a sense “of what”™s doable there.”
How they rate
Development scenarios for Davids Island, ranked for viability on a scale of 1 to 5:
Research institute with small hotel and conference center, 4.
Photovoltaic cells, 4.
Low- and medium-density residential, 3.
Low-density single-family houses, 2.67.
High-density row houses, 2.67.
Open parkland, 2.67.
Greenhouse, 2.33.
Wind turbines, 2.
High-density multi-unit housing, 1.33