Yonkers will have its downtown historic district and a developer of affordable housing there will have its design team go back to the drawing board for a $36 million project that could be more tenuous and more costly behind historic facades.
The Yonkers City Council last week unanimously agreed to create the Philipse Manor Historic District on Warburton Avenue, a preservation measure that had vocal public support and was recommended by the city Landmarks Preservation Board. The city Planning Board and Mayor Philip Amicone opposed the landmark district as a hindrance to the city”™s downtown redevelopment thrust.
A block of 13 properties bounded by Wells Street on the north and Manor House Square on the south and taking its name from Philipse Manor Hall, the colonial stone mansion that dominates the western side of Warburton Avenue on Larkin Plaza, it is the first commercial landmark district in Yonkers. The block of mid- to late-19th-century brick and wooden buildings, some in deteriorated condition or with altered fa̤ades, stands at the center of a downtown and waterfront area that could be physically transformed and economically revitalized in the next several years by billions of dollars in private redevelopment. Residents who sought landmark status for the block have said its adaptive reuse would fit in well with the cityӪs larger redevelopment plans, with upstairs residences and small commercial firms and retail stores at street level in low-rise buildings that complement the 18th-century manor hall.
City Council members agreed the downtown properties “represent a variety of styles that form a harmonious unit in scale with their dramatic surroundings of hills, cliffs and related 19th-century architecture, not to mention a unit that harmonizes with the characteristic Yonkers of intersecting, curving streets and with a public square of moderate width and essentially human scale that is unique to Yonkers.”
The landmarked district, however, could be one property owner”™s road block to redevelopment.
Greyston Foundation, a $13 million integrated network of for-profit and nonprofit entities and provider of community services in Yonkers that promote residents”™ self-sufficiency, spent $3.3 million over nine years to acquire five Warburton Avenue properties within the district and an adjacent vacant lot on North Broadway, Greyston President and CEO Steven Brown said last week. The pending landmark application for several months had stalled Greyston”™s planned $36 million workforce housing development on the site.
Greyston officials proposed to erect a 12-story building with 10,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space and a four-story parking garage. The upper floors would include 108 condos to be sold to Yonkers residents who met Westchester County”™s affordable-housing income requirements. Greyston officials said the housing could alleviate residents”™ concerns that the $1.4 billion mixed-use downtown redevelopment project proposed by the city”™s master developer, Struever Fidelco Cappelli L.L.C. (SFC), will force them out of a high-priced downtown housing market.
Knowing the council was prepared to landmark the block, Brown recently met for four hours with members of the Landmark Preservation Board. “It was a very positive meeting,” he said. “They expressed willingness and flexibility” to work with Greyston in going ahead with the housing project while maintaining historic streetscapes.
Brown said the project”™s designer will try to come up with a new building plan that does not reduce the number of housing units needed. He said Greyston officials previously determined it would not be economically feasible to save and readapt the newly landmarked buildings.
“We don”™t know if we can do that, but our goal now is to try to come up with something that is economically feasible but works within the historic district,” Brown said. “It”™s more expensive. That”™s one of the big questions, how much it adds and whether or not we can find a source of funding to defray the costs.”
Brown said he planned to return to the Landmarks Preservation Board this week with an initial redesign. “We”™re going to try to move it as fast as we can,” he said. “We”™ve lost some time in this process, which has been expensive, and we”™re kind of starting some of these things from scratch.”
The City Council also agreed to ask Westchester County to investigate the feasibility of purchasing a commercial property at 63 North Broadway as a site for affordable housing.
Council President Chuck Lesnick has said the property at the rear of the historic district could be an alternate site for the Greyston development. “Greyston may or may not use it in their footprint if they decide to go in that direction,” he said last week.
