Metro-North Railroad will continue its longtime use of a former General Motors track siding lot in Sleepy Hollow through a licensing and purchase option deal with the Sleepy Hollow Local Development Corp.
Approximately 2 acres of track siding on the 95-acre former General Motors property were licensed by the local nonprofit development arm to Metro-North, which agreed to pay a one-time fee of $284,731 for retroactive use of the siding tracks and related spur tracks and future monthly license fees of $13,109 for the tracks. The railroad has the option to buy the tracks for $1,573,155 by the end of this year.
Metro-North uses the sidings, on the east side of its Hudson Line tracks, to stage equipment for construction and maintenance work in the mid-Hudson region, including its ongoing Hurricane Sandy remediation project.
The license agreement was separately approved by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Sleepy Hollow Local Development Corp. boards.
The development agency acquired the track sidings as part of the 29-acre East Parcel on the long-vacant GM plant site in a transfer by developers of Edge-on-Hudson, the mixed-use development, including 1,177 housing units, on the 67-acre West Parcel of the riverfront property. The transfer was required following the property”™s sale by GM when village officials in 2011 issued a special permit for the project.
A spokesman for the local development corporation, whose CEO is Sleepy Hollow Village Administrator Anthony Giaccio, said plans for the rest of the east parcel include athletic fields and recreational facilities, new parking facilities for community use and Historic Hudson Valley”™s Philipsburg Manor attraction as well expanded facilities for the village public works department.
David Schroedel, chairman of the Sleepy Hollow LDC, in a press release said the Metro-North license and potential purchase “provide a valuable financial underpinning for the Sleepy Hollow LDC as we proceed with plans to transform the East Parcel into a vibrant center of community activity in the heart of Sleepy Hollow.”
