Ten years after their $59 million purchase of the landmark Reader”™s Digest Association property in Westchester, Connecticut developers have gained town officials”™ support for a retail shopping center on the office campus where a Whole Foods grocery is slated as anchor tenant.
The New Castle Town Board”™s recent action follows a decade of board meetings and public hearings dominated by community opponents of redevelopment on the 14-acre campus renamed Chappaqua Crossing, state and federal lawsuits and at least eight tax certioraris brought by a frustrated owner-developer against the town, and the bankruptcy of Reader”™s Digest five years ago that allowed the publishing company to break its anchor lease for 287,000 square feet of space in the 662,000-square-foot office complex. New Castle Town Supervisor Rob Greenstein, a vocal critic of the Chappaqua Crossing project before his election to town office, recently called it “the longest and most controversial land-use application in our town”™s history.”
- A rendering of the Whole Foods supermarket planned for Chappaqua Crossing. Rendering by BartonPartners Architects Planners Inc.
For the property”™s owner, Summit Greenfield Partners, that application also has been a costly one. The partners over the decade have spent in excess of $2.5 million in consulting, legal and professional services fees, Summit Greenfield spokesman Geoffrey Thompson said.
The town board at a special meeting Dec. 18 approved a special retail zone at Chappaqua Crossing, which Summit Greenfield Partners acquired in December 2004. The town board in 2011 approved 111 units of multifamily housing on the site, scaling back Summit Greenfield”™s initial proposal to build 348 townhouse and condo units.
Anchored by a 40,000-square-foot Whole Foods store, the 120,000-square-foot retail center will include restaurants as well as shops and a 25,000-square-foot health and fitness facility that was requested by town officials. Greenstein, who voted for the zoning change, said his goal is to create “a community-oriented, walkable retail development.”
The board”™s vote “gets the property finally moving forward as an income-producing property,” Thompson said.
The town board still must approve a preliminary development concept plan to establish the specific layout of the retail buildings, Thompson said, before Summit Greenfield returns to the New Castle Planning Board for approval of site plans in early 2015. “The whole project is going to move forward quickly once we get the final approvals,” he said.
Town board members who voted in favor of the retail center were swayed by the town”™s small commercial tax base since the departure of Reader”™s Digest and the prospect of property tax relief that a retail center at Chappaqua Crossing would bring to New Castle homeowners, as well as to town officials trying to stay within the state”™s 2 percent cap on annual increases in the property tax levy.
Greenstein in a statement read prior to the board”™s vote said commercial properties account for “a mere 3 percent” of the town”™s real property values, while residential properties accounted for approximately 91 percent. “That”™s unsustainable,” he said.
“Our property taxes make our community unaffordable to many young families, drive out our seniors and empty nesters, and ultimately will drive down our property values,” Greenstein said. “A strong commercial tax base is essential to our community”™s long-term fiscal health. ”¦The bottom line is ”” we must increase our commercial tax base.”
Town Councilman Adam Brodsky also voted for the retail development after “wrestling” with his decision throughout his first year in office. “The status quo ”” vacant, obsolete office space and a hole in our commercial tax base ”” is not the best choice for the town, in my opinion,” he said.
Town Councilman Jason Chapin in his remarks noted that during the 70-year tenure of Reader”™s Digest in New Castle, residents learned “to deal with all the traffic, including trucks, cars and shuttle buses that came with such a big and successful company.” The town and school district also relied on the property taxes paid by Reader”™s Digest, which at its peak had 7,000 employees occupying 700,000 square feet of office space on its headquarters campus.
Chapin said 21 percent of Chappaqua Crossing”™s office space currently is rented and more than 500,000 square feet is vacant. “While we”™ve enjoyed the reduced traffic, we”™ve also seen a sharp drop in the property”™s taxes,” he said.
New Castle Councilwoman Lisa Katz cast the sole vote opposing the retail zone on the five-member town board.
While she does not want the property to stay undeveloped, Katz said, Summit Greenfield”™s retail center proposal “is neither the right development, nor the right size, nor the right vision for our community.” Allowing a supermarket and additional retail development “of a size that approximately equals the size of the downtown Chappaqua business district” is not appropriate, she said. “The proposed retail project is just too big.”
Katz said the benefits of an increased commercial tax base from a successful Chappaqua Crossing development “likely will be small.” She said she worried that the development instead might have a negative impact on the town”™s property tax roll if homeowners near Chappaqua Crossing seek reductions in the assessed values of their homes and its competing retail center results in lowered assessed values for commercial properties in Chappaqua”™s downtown business district.
“From Summit Greenfield”™s perspective, this is a major step forward,” Thompson said. “Clearly this is the most significant step we”™ve taken basically since the town approved the housing” at Chappaqua Crossing.
“I think the Town Board and most residents of the town are ready to move on and move forward,” he said. “Ten years is enough.”
Felix Charney, a Summit Greenfield partner who heads Summit Development L.L.C. in Southport, Conn., said after the board”™s action, “It”™s been a long, costly and often painful process and there”™s more to be done, but this vote will allow us to move forward to submit the site plans and accelerate the leasing.”
As 26-year Chappaqua resident who lives merely a quarter-mile from CC, I’m glad there’s finally some light at the end of this litigious tunnel and that some redevelopment might finally soon begin. The struggles of “downtown” Chappaqua retailers are a chronic problem for which CC development plans aren’t to blame and shouldn’t be held hostage. New development might actually bring some customers — and tax revenue — back to New Castle.
Should anyone in this town be criticizing the intractability of national leaders when it takes us over a decade to resolve one land-use issue?
Wow, Whole Foods in Chappaqua and Costco in Yorktown approved in the same month. A real blow for the anti-development folks in Northern Westchester.