Largely idled for three years by the recession and poor real estate market, commercial developers in Yonkers this summer have emerged with site plans and zoning-change proposals for major mixed-use projects across the city.
On the downtown waterfront, the city”™s three-year-old master plan to redevelop the Alexander Street industrial corridor as a high-density, mass-transit-oriented neighborhood that mixes high-rise and townhouse residences with commercial offices, retail shops and public open spaces has its first active private developer.
Ron Shemesh, owner and CEO of Excelsior Packaging Group at 159 Alexander St., heads a development team for which the Yonkers Planning Board recently approved plans to build 1,395 residential units and 85,000 square feet of commercial space in a four-phase development on approximately 22 waterfront acres at the northern end of the industrial corridor. The Yonkers City Council still must approve a special use permit for the project.
In the first phase, Shemesh plans to build 500 residential units in five-story wood-frame buildings on the former British International Cable Corp. site. He heads an ownership group, One Point Street Inc., that last year acquired the vacant BICC site in a distressed sale, paying what sources said was $5 million to $6 million. The property in 2004 sold for $22 million.
The industrial site”™s previous developer, Homes for America Holdings Inc., in 2008 unveiled ambitious plans for a $900 million mixed-use development there, but in 2009 turned over the property to the company”™s lender, Satellite Asset Management, and was forced to vacate its downtown Yonkers headquarters after defaulting on more than $100 million in loans.
The 1 Point St. property, where a massive, seven-year-long brownfield cleanup estimated at $60 million has progressed to underwater dredging in the Hudson River, adjoins the state-of-the-art Excelsior Packaging plant. In the city”™s Alexander Street master plan, the plastic-bags manufacturer would be relocated to make way for redevelopment.
Shemesh”™s plans call for his Excelsior plant property to be redeveloped in the fourth and final phase of the project, replaced by two 12-story apartment buildings totaling 395 units and 40,000 square feet of commercial space.
At the northern end of the adjacent 1 Point St. property, two high-rise residences of 22 to 26 stories and totaling 280 units would be built in the second phase of the project, followed by a 220-unit, 30-story building in the third phase.
The redevelopment also would include 1,678 private parking spaces for residents and commercial tenants and 252 public parking spaces, eight acres of public open space and parks and four acres of private roof gardens. The developer also has proposed to build a state-of-the-art bridge over the Metro-North Railroad tracks connecting Point Street to the development.
An elusive presence in Yonkers, Shemesh could not be reached for comment. No cost estimates were included in plans submitted to the city.
Retail, housing proposed for Stew Leonard Drive
Near the city”™s northern limits and the State Thruway, the developer of the Stew Leonard”™s, Costco and Home Depot shopping plaza has petitioned Yonkers officials for a zoning change to clear the way for construction of additional retail space and apartment buildings on Stew Leonard Drive. The site on the Thruway corridor is northwest of Westchester”™s Ridge Hill, the 1.2-million-square-foot mixed-use development that Brooklyn-based Forest City Ratner Cos. will open this year.
Morris Industrial Builders L.P., an entity of Morris Cos. in Rutherford, N.J., has proposed to build 260,000 square feet of retail space, including a potential 5,000-square-foot restaurant, and a 400-unit complex of market-rate apartments in six three-story and four-story buildings.
A two-story, approximately 80,000-square-foot retail building would rise on a 4-acre lot next to Costco and Home Depot, according to a zoning-change petition submitted to the Yonkers Planning Board. An approximately 175,000-square-foot retail development would be built on an unimproved lot on Stew Leonard Drive.
City planning officials have requested a full environmental impact study from the New Jersey developer before taking action on the project.
Two developers, separate plans for property
At the South Westchester Executive Park in northwest Yonkers, two development companies separately seek to restore commercial life to a vacant and deteriorated property and add new uses in a stagnant market to the 140-acre complex of office, warehouse, Â light industrial and retail space.
The Yonkers Planning Board is reviewing preliminary site plans for a proposal by developer Ted Weinberg, of New Rochelle-based Weinberg BT L.L.C., to redevelop the former Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research building at 1086 N. Broadway.
The developer since 2007 has held a contract to buy the 87-year old building from the city once land use approvals are obtained.
The Yonkers Industrial Development Agency in late 2009 gave its preliminary agreement to provide a financial incentives package for the developer, who at the time proposed a $21-million project as the first phase of a two-phase project that would preserve the historic brick building at the western edge of the executive park.
Planning officials this summer are reviewing a proposal by Weinberg BT to redevelop approximately 84,000 square feet of space for commercial and medical offices, retail, banking and restaurant uses.
Ted Weinberg could not be reached for comment at presstime.
The South Westchester Executive Park also is being eyed for new opportunity and new uses by another developer named Weinberg.
Robert F. Weinberg, president of Robert Martin Co. L.L.C. in Elmsford, is seeking amendments to the city”™s executive park zoning to allow construction of apartments and townhouses, a supermarket, drugstore and other retail space on undeveloped parcels owned by his company, which controls approximately 50 acres and 525,000 square feet of still undeveloped commercial space in the park complex.
In a letter to the Yonkers City Council, the developer”™s attorney, Alfred B. DelBello, said demand for permitted commercial uses there “is still extremely weak, and the marketplace is not expected to materially improve in the foreseeable future.”
“That (executive park) market died in the late ”˜80s, except for special-use purposes,” Weinberg said.
The market-rate apartments he has proposed ”“ in five buildings built over a 10-year span – could accommodate relocating employees of the Elizabeth Seton Pediatric Center that is under construction in the executive park, he said.
As he did in the town of Greenburgh with the recent groundbreaking for a Super Stop & Shop on undeveloped office-park land, Weinberg also wants to bring a supermarket to his Yonkers property.
If the development is built as proposed, “The net result is almost $1.5 million annually into the coffers of the city” in sales tax and city income tax revenue, he said.
But his proposal to add residences to the commercial zone has not been well-received by city officials. “We are fighting an uphill battle,” said Weinberg.
Weinberg said he plans to take his case for new approaches to development to the community, convincing Yonkers housewives and other residents who could in turn sway elected officials.
“I think we”™ll get it done,” he said. “It”™s too logical to be fought off.”
