Developer LCOR Inc. has proposed to build nearly half a million square feet of hotel and big-box retail space on vacant land the company owns at the Landmark at Eastview in the town of Greenburgh.
Representatives for the commercial and residential real estate company, headquartered in Berwyn, Pa., recently told Greenburgh officials the developer aims to condense the project”™s environmental impact review and site planning into a one-year process. Construction then could begin by 2013.
Greenburgh officials must first approve LCOR”™s request to create a new designed shopping zone for parcels of 50 or more acres on the company”™s undeveloped 100-acre property. The site currently is zoned for multifamily and office park uses.
LCOR, in a joint venture with Argent Ventures and the former Lehman Brothers Inc., in late 1999 paid $82 million for the approximately 270-acre Landmark at Eastview, the former Union Carbide Corp. campus that straddles Old Saw Mill River Road in the towns of Greenburgh and Mount Pleasant. The partners in 2007 sold Landmark”™s developed office and laboratory space to Biomed Realty Trust Inc. of San Diego for $98.5 million, according to Westchester County land records.
BMR has redeveloped and expanded the office and lab complex as Westchester County”™s largest biotechnology center, anchored by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc., the state”™s largest biotech employer.
LCOR previously proposed building an age-restricted, senior-citizen housing complex on its vacant land, but withdrew those plans because of changed economic conditions, John J. Saccardi, LCOR”™s planning consultant in White Plains, told Greenburgh Town Board members at their Sept. 27 work session. A subsequent proposal for a multifamily residential development was dropped after encountering opposition.
LCOR has turned its focus to commercial development. The company”™s early plans include a four-story hotel and a shopping center with three retail buildings of 149,000 square feet, 137,000 square feet and 65,000 square feet.
Saccardi said the development will create an estimated 1,000 construction jobs over two years and 250 to 300 permanent jobs. The nearly 500,000 square feet of developed space would generate an estimated $2 million annually in town, school district and county property taxes.
“It”™s a significant economic development proposition,” Saccardi said.
Peter Gilpatric, senior vice president at LCOR”™s New York City office, told town officials the company “did go out to the marketplace” and talked to retailers about their interest in the site. “No one”™s ready to sign on the dotted line,” he said. “What I want to assure you is that we see market momentum. It”™s not a pig in a poke.”
Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner said the project”™s effects on traffic flow and stormwater drainage beside the flood-prone Saw Mill River must be addressed in the company”™s environmental impact review before the town gives its approval. The project does not impact residential areas, he said.
“I think it”™s going to be very positive,” Feiner said, adding Greenburgh residents could be more inclined to support the commercial project in the current “bad economy” as a jobs creator.
