From an office tucked away in the southwest corner of Mount Vernon, construction contractor and commercial developer Robert D. Anzilotti does his part for what his company trumpets as “the Mount Vernon resurgence.” At City Hall, Mount Vernon Mayor Clinton I. Young Jr. points to the developer”™s office-lofts conversion near the Bronx border as an element in the mayor”™s vision for the city”™s “renaissance.”
At South Street Lofts, a state-of-the-art redevelopment of a century-old factory building, Anzilotti and business partner Frank Calfa on Sept. 22 will host an after-work networking event as part of the second annual Mount Vernon Business Expo. Expanded this year, the expo is a three-day promotion of the 4.4-square-mile city as “open for business” by city officials and the Mount Vernon Chamber of Commerce.
Eight years into a multimillion-dollar investment, Anzilotti, though, still finds that New York City business owners are not open to the allure of neighboring Mount Vernon and its comparatively low rents. The city”™s old image to outsiders as crime-ridden and unwelcoming to business has been hard to overcome.
Company arrived in crime-ridden times
Anzilotti and Calfa in 1996 opened Structural Contracting Services Inc. (SCS) at 100 Pearl St. in Mount Vernon. SCS is a concrete and steel construction company whose recent projects include the Lincoln Center renovation in Manhattan. Their extensively renovated industrial property is on a dead-end block in a state Empire Zone that abuts the Metro-North Railroad tracks and the Bronx.
“When we moved here, they were burning cars here,” Anzilotti said of what was a lawless corner of the city largely abandoned or underused by manufacturers. “The postmaster refused to come down here.” Pearl Street was a working haven for prostitutes and drug dealers, he said.
The abandoned cars and illicit street traffic have disappeared since SCS reclaimed the area for business. “We immediately made friends with the police,” Anzilotti said. “We said, ”˜Hey, guys, we”™re down here. Come visit us.”™”
In 2002, the contractors acquired the former Ward Leonard Electric Inc. factory complex, a 320,000-square-foot sprawl of industrial buildings and a newly built 300-space parking garage on South, Pearl and Cortlandt streets. Subdividing the properties by street address, they rented manufacturing space to companies that typically lease 8,000 to 10,000 square feet. ?
SCS renovated, subdivided old electric complex
Tenants include a woodworker, soda distributor, upholsterer, manufacturer of shoulder pads for women”™s clothing and a 56-year-old hang-tag stringing company that moved from Brooklyn”™s trendy, high-priced DUMBO district.
The developers converted the former electric plant”™s 31 South St. into a four-story office building with exposed brick and beams, original hardwood floors and 16-foot-high-ceilings in leased spaces that range from 1,200 to 45,000 square feet. Much of the construction work was done in-house by SCS crews during lulls in jobs in the tristate area.
“We”™re not typical developers, because we overbuilt and overspent here,” Anzilotti said. “We”™re basically concrete guys.” They borrowed $10 million for their lofts project, which includes South Street Deli and Café, an amenity for area employees that opened in February in a converted factory garage.
In 2009, Anzilotti signed the first office tenant at South Street Lofts. Yet more than half of the building remains vacant, despite rents of under $20 per square foot. What would have been its largest tenant, a high-end interior design company, failed and left its fourth-floor build-out unfinished.
The developer said prospective tenants have come to look from New York City. “They love the building,” he said, but decide not to rent there after surveying Mount Vernon.
Mount Vernon needs other investment, development
“I think Mount Vernon still has this aura of not being safe and people not wanting to have an office here,” Anzilotti said. “That has to change.”
That change of image requires more investment and development on the order of “what we did here,” Anzilotti said. “This neighborhood was a pretty rotten neighborhood. You have to invest. You need people.”
“It”™s my own little secret,” Anzilotti said of his business location. “It”™s a great spot.” He and Calfa have acquired an additional 30,000 square feet of residential and industrial property on South Street with plans for more office or residential development there. But other developers have not followed into the area, he said.
Mayor says there”™s strong interest, investment
At City Hall, though, Mount Vernon officials have seen an upsurge in interest from businesses. Mayor Young said investment in the city is at an all-time high. “We literally have developers knocking the doors down, wanting to do projects in the city,” he said.
“We”™re doing it a little at a time,” Young said. While larger projects have garnered more publicity, such as the three-phase, $120-million residential and retail development that Manhattan-based Atlantic Development L.L.C. recently began at the Gramatan Avenue gateway to the city”™s downtown corridor, smaller developers of two-family and three-family houses are looking to build in the city, he said. “We have young people moving into Mount Vernon knowing they can get enough bang for their buck,” Young said.
To encourage business investment, Young said his administration has made City Hall “more user-friendly” by streamlining the building permit process and city reviews of project applications for “anyone, large or small, who needs a permit to do work in this city.”
In a two-year process, city planning officials are completing a comprehensive plan for the city”™s future growth and development, an undertaking last done in 1968.
South side getting attention from partnership group
Along the city”™s South Fourth Avenue corridor, what Young calls “one of our most economically challenged neighborhoods,” MVP Realty Associates L.L.C. has assembled several private properties and has offered to buy several more blighted properties from the city for a mixed-use development. MVP Realty”™s partners include Lettire Construction Corp. in Harlem and Daniel A. Amicucci, owner of J D Venture Capital in White Plains.
Amicucci said though development plans are changing, the partners proposed a mix of work force, senior-citizen and market-rate housing. “I think it”™s going to revolutionize the whole south side” of Mount Vernon, he said.
Project still in the ”˜wishful thinking”™ stage
For now, though, the development occupies the realm of “wishful thinking,” said Amicucci. “The bottom line is, until we do the assembly and are able to buy the properties that are needed, there really is not going to be a project,” he said.
Young said the South Fourth Avenue development will be a mix of apartment rentals and owner-occupied homes with national retailers and bank offices. “In addition to housing, I think honestly this is going to be the biggest boost to the commerce of this city in the past 50 years,” he said. “This is going to be a brand-new neighborhood. They (MVP Realty) have bought into my vision of a renaissance in Mount Vernon.”
For business investment, “Mount Vernon is extremely appealing now,” Young said. “We have never taken full advantage of our proximity to New York City.” With three Metro-North Railroad stations, “We are the most accessible community to the city within Westchester County.” Crime is down and Mount Vernon”™s real property tax increase this year was the lowest of any Westchester city, Young said.
“We”™ve always know it”™s been a real gem,” he said. “We”™re just trying to do more of selling the city package.”
Mount Vernon by the numbers
3rd
Most densely populated city in New York state
7th
Most densely populated municipality in the U.S.
8th
Largest city in New York state
29%
Amount of land zoned for commercial/industrial use
4.4
Number of square miles
Source: City of Mount Vernon
