New Rochelle opts for food market at former naval armory

Four months after issuing a call for proposals for the reinvention of a former naval armory overlooking Echo Bay, the New Rochelle City Council chose a proposal that seeks to transform the structure into a regional market and food-business incubator.

The proposal by Good Profit, based in Bedford, won out over a plan to turn the defunct armory into a performing arts center and veterans”™ community center, which had been jointly submitted by the Save Our Armory Committee and the United Veterans Memorial and Patriotic Association.

The Good Profit proposal was inspired by similar markets such as Manhattan”™s Essex Street Market, Chelsea Market and Eataly, and will include restaurants, food vendors, public spaces for meetings and performances, a distribution depot for locally grown produce, a center for culinary education and access to the Long Island Sound.

Chef and restaurateur Jeremiah Tower has been named executive culinary director for the project.

Good Profit said in a statement that it would also work closely with veterans groups to preserve the armory”™s legacy and to honor its military heritage.

The city”™s next step will be to secure the approval of a memorandum of understanding that will establish a timeframe for further developing the proposal, Mayor Noam Bramson said in a statement posted on his blog.

Bramson said the terms of the memorandum would likely be determined and voted on by the City Council sometime in October.

The vote favoring the Good Profit proposal, which took place at the council”™s Sept. 19 meeting, was rendered after the Business Journal went to press for its Sept. 24 edition.

The Good Profit proposal estimates construction costs of $26 million, which Michael Blakeney, the group”™s founder and director, said would be financed through a series of donations and investments.

Blakeney said Good Profit is backed financially by the Open Space Institute, based in New York City.

According to the proposal, the due diligence, planning and approvals process is estimated to take a year, with construction then estimated to last another year.

The group estimates annual operational expenses of $1.45 million, with annual revenues projected at $1.58 million.

The proposal calls for a hybrid model of governance, under which several functions undertaken at the site would be managed by a for-profit entity and others would be overseen by a nonprofit entity.