State development funds could be headed toward four Westchester County projects, including two public efforts aimed at improving village waterfronts on opposite sides of the county.
The Mid-Hudson Regional Economic Development Council published its 2018 annual report earlier this month, in which it recommended 21 “Priority Projects” for the Hudson Valley region. The 26-member Mid-Hudson council is one of 10 regional councils statewide vying for shares of up to $750 million in state grants, loans and tax credits.
While the majority of the council”™s recommendations for state funding focus on projects farther north, Westchester could see up to $5 million in grant funding if the state acts on its recommendations.
The council’s Westchester priorities include:
- a plan from the village of Sleepy Hollow to turn a former General Motors manufacturing site near its Hudson River waterfront into a community space;
- equipment upgrades at an industrial laundry in Mount Vernon;
- a renovation of the Greyston Foundation”™s headquarters in Yonkers; and
- a transformation of the Port Chester Byram River shore led by the village.
For the Sleepy Hollow project, the council recommended the state pitch in $2.5 million toward the estimated $15 million project. Known as Sleepy Hollow Commons, the village aims to clean up a 28-acre village-owned parcel on the east side of the sprawling property that served for decades as part of a manufacturing plant for General Motors. The land would be converted into a community center with an outdoor amphitheater, recreational facilities, green space and a bridge over Metro-North tracks to better connect the central village to the waterfront.
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The village”™s project coincides with an estimated billion-dollar joint venture project led by Diversified Realty and SunCal that is redeveloping the other nearly 70 acres formerly occupied by GM. That project, which started construction in 2016, could eventually feature more than a thousand condos, condominiums, townhouses and rental apartments; a 140-room boutique hotel and close to 200,000 square feet of office and retail space.
Speaking with the Business Journal about the Sleepy Hollow Commons in July, Sleepy Hollow Mayor Ken Wray said it would create “something the village has never had before: a new center, a new village commons.”
The first $2 million in state funds toward the project would fund stormwater and infrastructure improvements on the site.
Port Chester similarly could receive a boost to help improve its downtown waterfront. The village applied to the state for funding toward a nearly $5 million initiative that would turn a village block on the Byram River to a “a multifaceted public space for creativity, collaboration, recreation and civic engagement.” That would include plazas, a pedestrian bridge above the river, 140 new boat slips and a kayak launch.
The initiative is part of an ongoing process in the village to update its zoning to a form-based code. The village budgeted $650,000 last year to fund the zoning overhaul’s planning and community engagement process, which it has branded “Plan the Port.”
The council recommended the state award the project $1.2 million in grant funding for this round. Through previous competitions, the waterfront project has already been awarded a total of about $1.4 million in state funding. This year”™s funding would allow the village to continue infrastructure and site work, the village told the council.
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Westchester”™s other two priority projects involve private operators. Regent Hospitality Linen Services, a Queens company with a Mount Vernon industrial laundry, requested $225,000 toward a $1.25 million equipment purchase.
The company said it would use the funds to install a co-generation system that would use recaptured heat to help power the laundry. The potential power savings would allow the company to increase production, hire more employees and offer better training to new and existing employees, according to the council”™s report. The company estimated the project could create 25 jobs.
In 2016, the Mount Vernon Industrial Development Agency approved a tax incentive package for Regent Hospitality totaling an estimated $958,000 over 10 years toward its $6.1 million plan to convert a warehouse at 130 South Columbus Ave. in the city to a laundromat serving the hotel industry.
The Greyston Foundation, meanwhile, applied for about $1 million in state grant funding toward a $5.4 million project that will repair and refurbish its campus at 21-23 Park Ave. in Yonkers. Greyston would use the renovated space for job-creation programs, as well as for events. The funding would be used to upgrade a commercial kitchen on the site and renovate all buildings for safety, according to the council description. Greyston estimates the project could create 13 permanent jobs, as well 75 indirect and construction jobs.
This is the eighth competitive funding process since Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo established the councils in 2011. The grants are from Empire State Development, the state”™s chief economic development agency.
The round will award more than $750 million in state funding and tax incentives, including up to $150 million in capital grants and up to $75 million in Excelsior tax credits. An additional $525 million in grants from other state agency programs will be awarded through the process as well.
The grants will be announced by the end of the year.
