While the city”™s master developer rushes to gain approvals needed to break ground on its $1.6 billion revitalization project for downtown Yonkers, some business owners in the project”™s broad shadow there watch and wait ”“ and worry about their future.  Â
At La Pi̱ata Bakery on New Main Street off Getty Square, co-owner Roberto Espiritu is one of those. When the Yonkers City Council recently issued its environmental findings for the Struever Fidelco Cappelli L.L.C. development, his popular Hispanic bakeryӪs relocation became more likely. It would be the second move in less than five years for Espiritu and his wife and business partner, Cecilia Zuniga.
Espiritu last week was still in the dark, wondering whether the likely move would be done with help from his landlord, the City of Yonkers ”“ and wondering too where he”™ll go.
“I might do it,” he said of the move, “but I don”™t have the money.”
The couple started in business in Yonkers in 1993 in a smaller storefront on the opposite side of New Main Street, where several properties will be acquired and buildings razed to make way for SFC”™s River Park Center. When the revitalization project first was floated about seven years ago, they decided to move across the street to a vacant 2,800-square-foot space in the city Parking Authority”™s Government Center parking garage.
“This side was not included in the project until about four years later,” Espiritu said last week at the well-stocked bakery, where eight people work. “We figured we”™re going to be safe. We decided to do something nice thinking we could stay here.” With critical financial help from family members, the bakery owners invested about $400,000 in the new store and moved in 2004.
If the SFC project goes forward as now proposed, the city garage will be in the River Park Center footprint. The city will sell the property as part of its land disposition agreement being negotiated with the developer and the structure will be torn down.
“I try to make calls here, there” to city officials, “but nothing,” Espiritu said. When Deputy Mayor William T. Regan stopped for coffee recently, Espiritu said he was assured the city will not forget him and will keep his business in the area. The City Hall official”™s assurance hasn”™t eased the baker”™s worry about his family”™s livelihood.
“It”™s a huge project,” Espiritu said. Though he has spoken to SFC”™s project manager, he does not know whether its 496,000-square-foot retail element will include only major national retailers or both those and small local businesses like his. And he worries that if he moves to another Getty Square location in the development”™s shadow, he might be forced to move again.
Espiritu said other New Main Street business owners in the project”™s bounds share his anxious uncertainty. “For some reason they come to me and ask, ”˜Do you know anything?”™ ”˜Nothing.”™ That”™s my answer.”
“I think now everybody is just waiting. But by waiting and waiting, you might be too late.”Â
The baker”™s business neighbor, the C.H. Martin department store at New Main Street and Palisade Avenue on Getty Square, adjoins the proposed River Park Center project. New Jersey-based owner Martin Goldman was an early critic of the project and its proposed minor league ballpark in particular. Goldman is seen by some city and SFC officials as one of the interested parties that could bring a lawsuit challenging the project. Others include Scenic Hudson, the environmental advocacy group, and American Sugar Refining Inc., whose 70-decibel waterfront operations would border the two 25-story residences that SFC plans to build at Palisades Point. A Scenic Hudson official last week called the City Council”™s recent vote on the project”™s environmental findings “a rush to judgment.”Â
Goldman”™s attorney in White Plains, Debra S. Cohen, last week said her client “actually believes this project is moving much more in the right direction in terms of what Yonkers needs to revitalize its downtown.” But rather than patchwork zoning amendments that accommodate the SFC project alone, the city needs a comprehensive zoning revamp, she said, to allow other developers and owners such as Goldman to profitably redevelop their properties in a central business district where building heights now are limited to 50 feet or 5 stories, compared with the 400-foot, 40-story buildings proposed for SFC”™s Chicken Island site.
“The SFC development looks like an attempt to jumpstart things, but it”™s not really designed to blend Yonkers”™ unique elements and make it a unique destination,” Cohen said. “Yonkers needs to be thinking a little more globally.”
Cohen quoted Joseph Apicella, SFC”™s executive project manager and a senior vice president at Cappelli Enterprises Inc. in Valhalla, when addressing the City Council on the project”™s benefits to the Yonkers community and other businesses: “The rising tide raises all boats.”
“But any boat that leaves its fate to the vagaries of the tide is ill-fated,” Cohen added. Â
