A manufacturer of theatrical and architectural lighting with more than 50 years in Yonkers is marketing its property on the Hudson River as a prime site for high-rise residential and mixed-use development in the city”™s waterfront redevelopment scheme.
Altman Lighting Co. Inc. has retained brokers in the Stamford office of CBRE Group to market the family-owned company”™s 6-acre property at 57 Alexander St. to potential development investors and assemble a development team. Frank Tomasulo, senior vice president at CBRE who heads the marketing campaign with CBRE Vice President Paul Hoffman, said Altman Lighting will act as lead developer.
The Altman property is included in the city”™s master plan, adopted in 2009, to redevelop the underused and undervalued industrial area between the Hudson and the Metro-North Railroad tracks as a high-density neighborhood of townhouses and high-rise apartments, retail stores and commercial offices, parks, esplanade and marinas near mass transit. Two prospective developers of vacant industrial properties, the former cable wire plant at 1 Point St. and the Glenwood power plant at 2 Glenwood Ave., failed in the recession and defaulted on their Yonkers mortgage loans or purchase options.
The diminished prospects for the Alexander Street transformation brightened last year when investors led by Ron Shemesh, owner of Excelsior Packaging Group Inc. at 159 Alexander St., received the city planning board”™s approval of plans to build 1,395 residential units and 85,000 square feet of commercial space in four phases on the 22-acre site at 1 Point St. The Yonkers City Council this month granted a one-year extension of the developer”™s special-use permit for the project, which also would include redevelopment of the Excelsior Packaging plant site in the final phase.
Shemesh and investment partners are expected to close on the purchase of the Glenwood power plant at the northern end of the 1.3-mile-long, 112-acre waterfront corridor. A public-private partnership is seeking $25 million in state funding this year to aid an estimated $175 million project to restore and redevelop the 240,000-square-foot, 105-year-old power plant.
Shemesh and partners extended their holdings on the waterfront this year when they paid $4.5 million to acquire two vacant properties from Sun Chemical Corp. at 94 Alexander St. and 35 Water Grant St.
Tomasulo at CBRE said the Altman Lighting property “is the next logical site to be developed as you go north on the river” from City Pier and the Hudson Park residential and retail development of Collins Enterprises L.L.C. “It”™s a unique site.”
“We”™ve had a lot of interest from developer-investors to join in on this project,” he said. “We”™re talking to a number of them at this time.”
Hedging against his company”™s forced relocation if the city”™s vision for the Alexander Street corridor is realized, Robert Altman, president and CEO of Altman Lighting, several years ago bought nearly 15 acres of undeveloped land on the periphery of Stewart International Airport in Orange County as a possible site for relocation. Tomasulo said the company has several relocation options.
Altman Lighting last year received financial incentives from the Yonkers Industrial Development Agency to aid the company”™s project to modernize its plant to produce light-emitting diode or LED lighting systems. Altman”™s short-lived 2010 agreement with Mandalap Enterprises L.L.C., a New Jersey private equity company, to manage the Yonkers plant”™s day-to day operations and oversee its technological upgrade ended in late 2011 in a court settlement of a dispute over payments.
Tomasulo said CBRE brokers and Altman have begun talks with city officials, who are “certainly enthusiastic” about the project. “We”™re really at the conceptual stage of this right now,” he said.
