The voluminous talk in Yonkers this spring as the $1.6 billion redevelopment project proposed by Struever Fidelco Cappelli L.L.C. works its way through public hearings has irked and worried Steve Sansone.
While the lifelong Yonkers resident finds “interesting” the publicly stated opinions for and against the project ”“ and those favoring redevelopment but objecting to aspects of or omissions from the SFC proposal in its current draft form ”“ Sansone feels “defensive” in his advocacy role as executive director of the Yonkers Downtown/Waterfront Business Improvement District. He”™s heard a lot of trash talk from both sides of the battle line drawn in Yonkers. The BID he heads counts 280 to 300 businesses and property owners there as members.
“One of the things that I”™ve been kind of ired at is the way that people have been speaking about downtown,” he said last week, after the second and final public hearing on the SFC project drew about 90 speakers at Roosevelt High School, several of whom left before their time to speak in the four-and-a-half-hour meeting. As at the first hearing, several speakers depicted downtown as an undesirable place in urgent need of an economic fix, lacking in the amenities that bring in shoppers and visitors and attract and keep residents there.
“At the end of the day, there are businesses that are thriving there and doing well, whether they be nail salons or insurance agencies or restaurants,” Sansone said. “We don”™t want the reputation (of downtown) to be diminished at the expense of those businesses, because we are the welcome wagons” for developers. “If we keep trashing what”™s there, there”™s going to be irreparable damage to those restaurants and businesses.”
Sansone delivered that cautionary message at the City Council hearing last week. While there is “much anticipation and excitement” in the BID district, he added, “there is just too much uncertainty and this uncertainty does not help business, nor does it provide a clear message to our property owners and businesses as to what direction they should be heading, especially those who may be seeking financing or even to potential investors in the downtown.”
Sansone spoke of two sets of “pioneers” in the downtown district ”“ those who have been there for decades and the “new” pioneers who arrived in the last few years, drawn by the promise of a revitalized Yonkers.
Many old-timers “anticipate with excitement more foot traffic, the possibility of expanding their businesses or altering some of their services to accommodate new shoppers and diners and, most importantly, looking forward to repairs to our aging infrastructure,” he said. While many see new opportunities within a redeveloped downtown, other “want assurances that they will be included in downtown”™s future.”
Many of the new pioneers “are struggling and cannot hold out much longer,” Sansone said. “Many have invested their life savings hoping to reap the benefits of a promised revitalized downtown.”
“The biggest problem is the new pioneers,” he said later. “Those are the folks who are really struggling. The uncertainty is really the problem. Uncertainty is not helping business.”
“All of these pioneers want a clear message as to where we are going with our downtown, one which will assist everyone,” he told the City Council. That message “needs to be sent very soon.”
Council members also heard repeated requests that SFC provide scale models of the project so that residents might better grasp the reality of 50-story and 25-story towers rising amid the 300-foot to 350-foot hills of Yonkers.
“I love this development. I really want to see it happen,” said Charles Hensley, an actor and director, calling for scale models. “I want to make sure that when we”™re done, it doesn”™t look like someone played pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and we lost.”
“My family came to Yonkers to escape tall buildings, not to live in their shadows,” said Michelle Jacobs, a heated opponent of the SFC project who warned that “developers don”™t care about Yonkers, they care about making money off of Yonkers.” Taking a stand opposite union and construction trades workers wearing T-shirts that read, “The Future Is Now ”“ Let”™s Build It,” she urged the Council to “take a sensible, slow look at the SFC and other development plans.”
Julia Weiner, representing the Council for SUNY Yonkers, urged SFC to financially contribute to the creation of a four-year SUNY College of Technology and Applied Science on a proposed project site.
SFC in its draft environmental impact statement said it was actively pursuing a SUNY school or other established educational institution to occupy its proposed 14-story, 225,000-square-foot Palisade Avenue Office Building at Elm Street and Palisade Avenue. But Weiner said the plan does not address the developer”™s contribution to the potential tenant.
She recommended SFC offer a 10-year, rent-free allocation for the college and give further financial support through developers”™ foundations such as the Louis R. Cappelli Foundation, the youth-oriented philanthropic arm of one of the development partners, Cappelli Enterprises Inc.
The SUNY school, Weiner said, “will be an anchor institution and the crowning jewel of the SFC project.”
The public comment period for the SFC project ends May 30. The City Council will accept input until that day.
