The Post Road is one of the state”™s oldest byways, dating to milliners and wheelwrights. Its DNA is about to change.
As a retail renaissance currently characterizes the central White Plains business district, the East Post Road corridor is simultaneously morphing into a 21st-century medical cluster.
Marked most distinctly by the White Plains Hospital redevelopment project and the luxury Kensington Enhanced Assisted Living and Memory Care residence opening this June, the area around Maple Avenue and East Post Road is visibly becoming the city”™s medical-residential hub.
“Our goal was to create parking for the local businesses and the hospital and to bring more medical or medical-related uses to the area,” said Susan Habel, commissioner of planning for the city of White Plains, of the ongoing East Post Road Phase II urban renewal project.
Westchester Implant and Oral Surgery Group purchased for $1.7 million 4 Cromwell Place from the city following its acquisition of the medical-office building and adjacent at-grade parking lot, according to the 2009-2010 White Plains Urban Renewal Agency annual report. The building had been designated for private redevelopment to further enhance the area as a medical/hospital zone, the report indicated.
“This block has turned over,” said Dr. Michael Caruso, an oral surgeon and proprietor of Westchester Implant. “You have the assisted living ”¦ You have the brand-new municipal parking, which is fantastic, so there”™s a lot of new construction and a lot of new faces here.”
Traffic congestion and parking were top concerns for the area, greatly alleviated by the 758-space Longview Cromwell Municipal Parking Garage adjacent to The Kensington site, with 42 percent of the spaces allotted for the hospital upon completion in 2009. It also serves The Dickstein Cancer Treatment Center, a subsidiary of White Plains Hospital.
“The hospital has a certain amount leased (300 parking spaces according to hospital CEO Jon Schandler) and wants to lease more,” Habel noted. “It”™s been hugely important to the hospital. Before they had the parking at the Longview garage, they used to park on top of the Galleria and would shuttle employees to the hospital. It was difficult and expensive.”
To improve traffic flow and to relieve congestion in the area, Habel noted: “We just approved through the Traffic Commission to make Davis Avenue one-way between Maple and Post Road so the hospital can create a much nicer gateway, which is part of its redevelopment plan.”
White Plains Hospital has made $10-million headway into a $75 million capital-improvement project, which will essentially rebuild the lobby area, enhance the entrance/exit areas, expand operating rooms and update utility systems.
The hospital is a major economic anchor for the City of White Plains and the particular “hospital zone” where Caruso”™s office is located.
The city”™s efforts to amp up medical office usage are welcomed.
“I think there is real interest from people in the corridor for medical space,” Schandler said. “We have 750 medical practitioners on staff and do $300 million in revenue a year. So many medical practitioners have gone out to Westchester Avenue, particularly the specialties that use the hospital on a daily basis and who would prefer to be closer.”
Caruso said about 2,900 square feet, including common space, is available on the second floor of 4 Cromwell Place, a renovated building Westchester Implants shares with a psychologist, Mary Travis.
The former building of the oral surgery center, 170 Maple Ave., which is directly adjacent to White Plains Hospital, is “relegated to being a medical space,” Caruso said.
The addition of the five-floor, 87-suite Kensington to the neighborhood will contribute to added traffic flow.
“Though we don”™t gain from traffic flow, we do gain from a gentrified neighborhood,” Caruso said. “They”™re putting in a homeless shelter right down the street. That”™s not going to bode well for us. As patients come through here, they like to drive down a nice neighborhood, and since this is a one-way street, they have to come through Post Road. The ER did a very nice job.” He also praised the local gas station”™s cleaner efforts. “But for the rest of the area, we need an anchor. A tax incentive maybe for a bank to come in.”
But on the plus side, new Kensington residents will trickle down to new clients for both Caruso and White Plains Hospital and surrounding medical offices.
“For us, it”™s a clear group of people we expect to be caring for,” Schandler said.
