Walking her managerӪs beat in downtown Ossining on a recent Monday, Ingrid M. Richards came upon a small, sunny-morning celebration outside 123 Main St. Restaurateur and chef Abel Pinto was opening DӪouro Caf̩, a European-style bakery and coffee shop, beside Docas, the Portuguese eatery he has run for 12 years at 125 Main St.
Checking out the new shop and its aromatic baked goods was Pinto”™s downtown landlord and fellow native of Portugal, Melita Silva. With her husband, Pedro, a building contractor, she bought the 125 Main St. building and opened Melita”™s Home Furnishings 13 years ago. The Silvas now own three adjacent Main Street buildings and have renovated another downtown property on Spring Street for 12 luxury rental apartments above a laundromat operated by their son.
“We have to get you on Live Ossining,” Richards told Pinto. “I need to get your information from you.” Pinto nodded.
Hired last January by village trustees as Ossining”™s first manager of downtown and economic development, Richards was speaking of the Facebook page she recently started to promote village businesses and events. Along with black metal benches that have replaced broken wood-slatted ones on Main Street this summer, Live Ossining is one of the visible changes made by Richards in her part-time, $50,000-a-year job to nurture existing businesses and attract viable new ones to the Hudson River community.
Her salary, her new office”™s lone expense, is not paid by local taxes, Richards said, but comes from a $250,000 village fund for downtown development financed by the village”™s waterfront development partners in Harbor Square L.L.C., Ginsburg Development Cos. and Cappelli Enterprises Inc. “They believe there”™s a true connection between the waterfront and the downtown,” said Richards, a town of Ossining resident and a former municipal administrator in three Westchester villages, including a stint as Ossining”™s interim assistant village manager.
Stalled for four years since the recession, Ossining”™s hotly debated Harbor Square mixed-use development was revived this year by developer Martin Ginsburg. Village planning officials are reviewing project plans presented by Ginsburg Development that initially included a six-story, 188-unit luxury rental apartment building linked to a 10,000-square-foot restaurant and retail center and a roughly three”“acre public park. The village in late 2011 was approved for a $485,000 state grant to help build Harbor Square Promenade Park.
“We believe that is an essential project for Ossining,” Richards said of Harbor Square. “It helps with economic development. It helps with increasing our buying power.”
Buying power is one key element on which Richards will focus in her downtown role. It can be achieved, she noted, by building a mix of market rate, luxury rate and low-density housing. As young families and single professionals make their homes in Ossining, the village”™s median household income is expected to rise. That added buying power will help sustain businesses drawn to open in the village, Richards said.
That housing mix “is helpful” in developing a more commercially diverse and vibrant downtown, she said. “When businesses come here, they need to be able to sustain themselves.”
Tourism provides another boost to a village”™s buying power. Among her office”™s strategic objectives, Richards favors relocating the village”™s urban cultural park to a waterfront site near Sing Sing Correctional Facility. There a Sing Sing museum could be a major tourist attraction, she said. A waterfront aquarium and a children”™s play museum are other possible tourist developments there, she said.
On a downtown walking tour, Richards pointed out stores and vacant space in a prominent former bank that could be leased to create a downtown “restaurant row.” Already well stocked with ethnic restaurants like Pinto”™s, Ossining “can be that ethnic urban center” that attracts visitors from Westchester”™s surrounding suburban communities such as Briarcliff Manor and Croton-on-Hudson, she said.
The village is seeking an approximately $2 million state grant to develop a food and beverage business incubator in a downtown building, Richards said. Ginsburg Development is the village”™s private partner in the incubator project, which could take a startup business from an entrepreneur”™s house to an office location. The incubator might include retail space where startup companies could sell their products, Richards said.
Ossining officials have worked with the Hudson Valley Economic Development Corp. (HVEDC) and Westchester County Office of Economic Development to secure state funding for the incubator. Based in Orange County, HVEDC this year launched the Hudson Valley Food and Beverage Alliance.
“We want to create relationships with those types of groups so that people who are entrepreneurs who want to start businesses know Ossining is a welcoming place that wants their business here,” Richards said.
“I think it definitely can happen. We just have to work with business pioneers, young entrepreneurs who are willing to come in and invest today. We”™re willing to work with them.”
Developments such as Harbor Square on the waterfront are expected to attract the young professionals that stimulate a community”™s buying power and downtown dining and shopping. Richards noted that Ossining was chosen as the pilot community for The Business Council of Westchester”™s economic initiative to keep and attract young professionals to Westchester. The Business Council project will start in early September, she said.
At 45-47 Spring St., the Silvas are accommodating young commuting professionals with renovated luxury apartments. They plan to add more luxury rentals at a condemned property they acquired on downtown Brandreth Street as their next redevelopment project.
The outlook for downtown Ossining? “It”™s very positive,” said Melita Silva. “When we bought (125 Main St.) 13 years ago, people would not walk down here. They didn”™t feel it”™s safe. There was nothing to attract them downtown.”
Though food businesses “do very well down here,” Melita said her home furnishings, antiques and custom upholstering business struggles for customers. “I”™m a hidden jewel,” she said. “In order to do well, I need to advertise. I don”™t have the money to advertise.” Silva is moving her business online while keeping a physical presence on Main Street. “I think I”™m in the right direction, but unfortunately the economy is not helping us,” she said.
“We need to make downtown a destination,” said Silva. “It”™s not a destination yet. We need more stores.”
Silva said Ossining needs “new ideas” and “new people” to make progress on redevelopment efforts downtown. One improvement pushed by Richards would restore two-way traffic on commercial Spring Street.
“There”™s a lot of talking going on,” Silva said. “But everything, for me, takes too long, too long to happen. We need more incentive for people to open” downtown businesses.
“They cannot forget downtown. It is the heart of Ossining,” Silva said.
