A Yonkers manufacturer and his development partners have acquired a prime redevelopment parcel on the city”™s waterfront at a bargain price in a deal that had been cloaked in secrecy.
Linda Shaw, an environmental attorney in Rochester representing the buyer, said a private group of developers bought the company, One Point Street Inc., that owns the 15-acre property, a former industrial site at the northern end of Alexander Street.
Vacated by BICC Cable Corp. in 1996 and later used by the film industry for sound-stage production and location shooting, the property is one of the largest brownfield sites in the state, Shaw said. Its cleanup already has cost $40 million and will total about $60 million when completed by the end of this year.
A reliable source said the buyers paid $5 million to $6 million in the deal. The property was sold to a developer for about $22 million in 2004.
The new ownership group includes Ron Shemesh, owner of Excelsior Packaging Group Inc. on the downtown Yonkers waterfront. The property adjoins the Excelsior transparent-packaging plant at 159 Alexander St. The sellers were led by Satellite Asset Management L.P., a Manhattan hedge-fund firm that was lender to the failed developer of the site, Homes for America Holdings Inc.
Commercial real estate broker Paul Adler facilitated the deal in his other role as managing partner of Blackacre Partners OPS L.L.C., a liability transfer company that operates the massive brownfield cleanup on the site, now in its sixth year.
A national development company formerly based in Yonkers, Homes for America Holdings about two years ago unveiled plans for Point Street Landing, a proposed $900 million development of more than 1,100 high-rise and townhouse residences, public parks and about 100,000 square feet of office and retail space on the former factory site. The project at 1 Point St. was to be a major element in the city”™s plans to redevelop its Alexander Street waterfront corridor as a high-density, mass-transit-oriented neighborhood.
But Homes for America last year vacated its downtown Yonkers headquarters and disappeared from the real estate scene after defaulting on a $100 million loan from Satellite Asset Management for the Point Street Landing project. Homes for America also defaulted on its mortgage loan with Amalgamated Bank for its Station Plaza office building at 86 Main St. and failed to repay the city of Yonkers a reported $2.9 million of a federally guaranteed construction loan.
If city officials carry out their master plan for Alexander Street”™s redevelopment, which has been stalled by the credit crisis and recession, the modern, state-of-the-art Excelsior plant would be among several businesses forced to relocate from the waterfront. The recent deal by Shemesh led one source to suggest the plant owner would expand Excelsior operations to a portion of the cleaned-up brownfield site and use the property as leverage in future negotiations with the city.
Shaw, though, said the new owners”™ plans for the site “should be relatively consistent with the city”™s master plan. I don”™t believe the long-term plan is to expand that plant. I think the long-term goal of the group is to redevelop the waterfront” for residential or mixed use.
“These are private individuals with sufficient means to move the project along,” Shaw said. “They”™re certainly situated to actually get something accomplished. There should be some movement on this in the near future. I know they”™re actively starting and working on the real reuse of the site.”
Before Shaw spoke, Shemesh was said to have imposed a “gag order” to prevent parties from disclosing the deal. Even Yonkers City Hall officials have been left in the dark about the purchase, according to a source.
Shemesh and David Simpson, spokesman for Yonkers Mayor Philip Amicone, did not return calls for comment.
