The group that planned a temporary sports bubble on the former site of Frank”™s Nursery in Greenburgh has submitted a new plan to build a recreation building on a portion of a golf range on Dobbs Ferry Road.
Game On 365 Sports LLC filed a petition to amend the town zoning code to allow recreational uses on a portion of the Westchester Golf Range site, on Dobbs Ferry Road between the Sprain Brook Parkway and the Saw Mill River Parkway. The project would include a field house covering 94,000 square feet and featuring indoor turf fields, hard courts and a walking track. The Westchester Golf Range would continue to operate, and the remaining land would be preserved as open space and used for recreation fields and related uses.
- A rendering of the field house proposed by Game On 365 Sports LLC for Dobbs Ferry Road in Greenburgh.
“The concept (is) to bring a state-of-the-art sports and recreation facility to the town of Greenburgh,” said attorney David Steinmetz, who represents Game On, at the Greenburgh Town Board work session Feb. 10. Steinmetz said the plan is an updated, improved version of the plan previously submitted by Game On 365 for the former Frank”™s Nursery site.
“It would be privately owned and operated and available to the public, available to the youth, and available to schools,” Steinmetz told the Town Board.
Brian Fee, the owner of Velocity Sports Performance in Elmsford, and Kevin Kaye, the owner of On Track Sports in Tarrytown, are part of the group hoping to build the field house.
Steinmetz told the board Fee and Kaye are both local businessmen with a strong background in sports business.
“Both of these guys have a wealth of experience, along with their other partners,” Steinmetz said. “This is not a group that thinks they have a good idea but they”™ve never tried it before. ”¦ They”™ve tried it before, they”™ve been successful and they”™re excited to do it here.”
The 32-acre Westchester Golf Range site is in a residential zone, so a change to the area”™s zoning would be required to allow recreational use to build the complex.
- A rendering of the proposed field house viewed from the golf range. The dome outline represents Game On’s previous plan for a sports bubble at the site of Frank’s Nursery.
“The zoning change has to be referred to the Planning Board for review,” Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner told the Business Journal. Feiner said that referral could come in early March but that full review and approvals of the plan could take a year or more.
“I don”™t really know what”™s going to happen, how the Planning Board will vote on the rezoning,” Feiner said. “You have people who like sports who are for it, and you have people in the neighborhood who are against it.”
The group previously planned a sports complex on the former site of Frank”™s Nursery at 715 Dobbs Ferry Road, which the town of Greenburgh acquired in a 2011 tax foreclosure. Game On had offered $1.7 million for the land and promised an additional $1.3 million over 13 years. Town officials announced they had agreed to that deal in May 2013.
But the deal drew opposition, with critics saying the phrasing of the deal did not ensure the $1.3 million would be paid. Some residents said the town should have accepted a competing offer from Ardsley-based House of Sports, which had jumped in with a $3.5 million cash offer for the property “as is.”
A month after announcing the deal with Game On, the town offered the property to House of Sports instead. Both companies threatened lawsuits if Greenburgh contracted with the other, leading to the town putting off the sale. The Frank”™s Nursery site remains tied up in environmental reviews, and Feiner said the site will probably hit the auction block in the summer.
As part of his presentation at the Town Board”™s work session, Steinmetz said the group had “taken a step back” to re-evaluate the concept and the proposal.
“As a team, we feel we”™re coming in now with something that”™s vastly improved,” he said. He said that reviewing public comments opposing the previous plan of a bubble on the Frank”™s Nursery site led the group to plan for a permanent structure. “We think we can show you that we”™ve softened the impacts and made something that”™s functional and attractive.”
