It”™s a long, winding road oft traveled from concept to construction in Westchester County, but a developer”™s early plans for an ambitious health and science research and education park in Valhalla won plaudits from private and public officials who could play roles in the project”™s future planning.
John J. Fareri, president and CEO of Fareri Associates in Greenwich, Conn., recently revealed plans to build an approximately $500-million, 2-million-square-foot development for biotechnology and medical tenants and a children”™s interactive, state-of-the-art health education center on an 80-acre site that adjoins the Westchester Medical Center campus in the Grasslands section of Mount Pleasant.
Fareri, the grief-driven father of a 13-year-old rabies victim, with his family raised some $40 million in donations and built the Maria Fareri Children”™s Hospital at Westchester Medical Center that opened in 2004. He owns 20 acres of the proposed site and wants to lease the remaining 60 acres from Westchester County, a deal that has early support from Democratic leaders on the county Board of Legislators.
The project, largely privately financed, would add critical mass to a yet undeveloped biotech industry cluster here that is a focus of county and regional marketing efforts by economic development officials. It also would bring needed retail services and downtown amenities to the physically isolated medical center and New York Medical College campuses.
Like his earlier plans for the children”™s hospital, Fareri”™s plans for a hotel, exercise facility, restaurants and retail shops on the Grasslands campus draw on his and his wife”™s experience while staying in their late daughter Maria”™s hospital room at Westchester Medical Center. She died there of rabies from a bat bite in 1995.
Fareri said the Children”™s Living Science Center, a 60,000-square-foot to 80,000-square-foot facility that he plans for the health and science park, is designed to give youths an education in healthy and unhealthy behavior and diseases “that keeps children out of the (Maria Fareri) hospital.”
At New York Medical College, whose faculty and lab and research resources Fareri sees as providing “cross-pollination” for private companies in the health and science park, Dr. Karl Adler, college CEO, welcomed the developer”™s proposal.
“I would like to see the Valhalla campus move more aggressively into the biotech industry,” he said. New York Medical College this spring began the $12.55-million redevelopment of a vacant office building as a regional biotechnology center for disaster medicine and merging infections and is seeking funding for an estimated $11.5-million redevelopment of lab and research space as a business incubator for private companies.
“John”™s project would expand that much further,” said Adler, who has discussed the health and science park project with Fareri.
The Fareri project also “offers a tremendous opportunity to really develop a community on this campus,” said Adler. NYMC students now must drive off-campus to restaurants, he said.
Attorney Mark S. Tulis, board chairman at Westchester Medical Center, said Fareri”™s project could realize a long-sought use for the undeveloped county property north of the hospital campus. He said the developer has not presented plans to the full medical center board but has discussed his project with Tulis and Westchester Medical Center President and CEO Michael D. Israel.
“We”™ve always viewed the north 40, or the north 60, as something that would be biotech; that would be an excellent use of the property,” Tulis said. For medical center doctors, it would allow “a great deal of synergy” with the nearby private research facilities.
“My personal belief is that it would be excellent,” Tulis said.
Westchester County Economic Development Director Laurence Gottlieb said Fareri”™s mixed-development plans include the “lifestyle components” the Westchester office-park culture lacks and the county needs if is to become an East Coast center for the biotech industry.
“To have a truly successful, growing biotech cluster, you need these very smart people to talk to each other in a more relaxed atmosphere,” he said. “We need to create play areas for the workers in the biotech area because they”™re very isolated on their campuses.”
“There”™s a lot of excitement that I hear about it,” Tulis said of Fareri”™s proposal. The developer and his supporters, though, must work with town of Mount Pleasant and county officials as project planning progresses, he cautioned.
“He”™s got a long road here,” Tulis said.
