LCOR Inc. expects tenants to be able to begin moving into its new building at 57 Bank St. in White Plains as early as April, according to Anthony Tortora, LCOR”™s senior vice president.
“We expect our first temporary certificate of occupancy by early- to mid-March,” Tortora told the Business Journal. “We are basically on our schedule to the day despite Covid-19. Obviously we had to overcome some issues with instituting safety protocols and things like that. We did some smart buying upfront because, even before Covid, the embargoes with various countries and the tariff wars were getting us concerned about materials and how long it was going to take so we ended up placing orders early, which ended up being very helpful.”
Tortora is responsible for managing the overall execution of several of LCOR”™s development projects in the New York metro area as well as sourcing investment opportunities.
Tortora praised the effort put into the project by LRC Construction, which helped overcome pandemic-related effects. He noted there were no virus outbreaks at the construction site.
The building at 57 Bank St. is the second phase of LCOR”™s Continuum project and is being marketed as Continuum 57, picking up on the name Continuum that was given to the sister building at 55 Bank St. The Continuum has 288 units while there are 309 in Continuum 57.
Tortora said that 55 Bank St. has been fully leased and he expects there to be about 25 leases written each month for Continuum 57, about the same rate of leasing as experienced with 55 Bank St. Because of Covid restrictions on large gatherings, Tortora doesn”™t expect there to be the same kind of grand opening celebration that took place in April 2018 for the opening of 55 Bank St.
“Phase one did have the big opening with a ribbon cutting. With the challenges to group gatherings these days, something like we did with phase one is going to be difficult, We”™re trying to figure out how do we do that in a safe and smart way but haven”™t finalized that plan yet,” Tortora said.
LCOR”™s interest in downtown White Plains near the Metro-North Railroad station can be traced back to its development of the mixed-use 15 Bank St., dubbed Bank Street Commons.
It negotiated the purchase of a 2.6-acre parking lot from the city in assembling the Continuum buildings site. Original plans called for 24-story structures rather than the current 16 and 17 stories. A hotel also had been proposed for the site along with a parking garage.
On Jan. 7, 2019, the White Plains Common Council approved LCOR”™s request to modify the approved site plan for 57 Bank St. by adding an additional 36 units, bringing the count for the building to 309 apartments, making a total of 597 units for both phases of the project.
Apartment leasing firms show studios in the Continuum 57 priced from $2,055 to $2,205 a month, one-bedrooms from $2,507 to $2,858 a month and two-bedroom units from $3,935 to $6,230 a month.
“If we”™ve learned anything over time it”™s that cities are resilient. While there may be temporary dislocations, we”™re still really bullish on White Plains and we”™re still really bullish on Westchester County. We”™re still really bullish on New York City, for that matter,” Tortora said.
“White Plains has a lot going for it in the sense that it”™s proximate to New York City and was able to capture some of the migration out of the city and we expect demand to be strong.”
Tortora said that the types of finishes and amenities used in the second building are comparable with what went into the first.
“Certain amenities are shared like the swimming pool. Phase two will have its own gym area, its own roof deck. It will have its own work-from-home space,” Tortora said.
“In a lot of ways the pandemic accelerated trends that we were seeing in the market even before Covid, like the work-from-home trend, the ability to have flexibility in your spaces. We”™ve really embraced technology in that regard. We have a proprietary fiber optic network that we threaded through the building that allows our tenants to cut the (cable) cord if that”™s something they want to do. They have Wi-Fi throughout the building and can work from wherever they want.”
Tortora said that phase one of the Bank Street project attracted the anticipated mix of millennials and empty nesters and he believes the demographic mix will be comparable for phase two.
When it comes to new projects in Westchester or other suburban locations, Tortora said LCOR is looking for new deals all the time, especially in the suburbs. He pointed to three projects in Greenwich that it owns and manages. However, he added that there were no new projects to announce right now.
“Once we deliver phase two (at Bank St.) we will have delivered over a thousand units in White Plains,” Tortora said. “The low interest rates are helpful. Lending standards have become more difficult. As an institutional developer LCOR has been able to capitalize on lower interest rates. If you”™re someone out there looking for super-high leverage I think the market has gotten a little more challenging but that”™s not how we operate.”
When ground was broken for the first building, the total investment in the two-phase project was estimated to be $250 million. Tortora declined to speculate what the final value of the project would be.
LCOR shows $9.5 billion in projects completed, under construction or in the pre-development stage. It describes its portfolio as containing more than 20 million square feet of commercial space and 21,000 residential units. The company has offices in Manhattan, Washington, D.C., and Berwyn, Pennsylvania.
