The Westchester County Industrial development Agency (IDA) has given preliminary approval to $32.87 million in tax breaks for three developers working on projects in downtown White Plains. The financial incentives provide exemptions from paying sales and mortgage recording taxes.
WP Mall Realty LLC is to receive $17.5 million in tax breaks for its Hamilton Green project on the site of the White Plains Mall on Hamilton Avenue. The project includes four apartment buildings with 860 units plus a 956-space parking garage, 85,400 square feet of retail and restaurant space and 27,000 square feet of co-working office space. The project has a projected total cost of $585.2 million.
Lennar Multifamily Co. would receive $12.15 million in tax exemptions for its redevelopment of the former Westchester Pavilion at 60 S. Broadway. Revised plans for the $500 million project call for 814 apartments in two buildings and 28,056 square feet of ground-level retail and restaurant space. There would be 932 parking spaces created. Lennar proposes to build in two phases, each to take two years. with the first to begin in June 2020 and second in 2022.
The third project to receive preliminary tax-break approval is the Waterstone, which would receive $3.22 million. Waterstone is a 5-story, 132-unit independent living facility slated to go up at 120 Bloomingdale Road. Cost is placed at $115 million for the project, which would include a four-story parking garage on an adjacent parcel. The developer also is proposing to make a $1.2 million donation to the White Plains Affordable Housing fund instead of satisfying its obligation to provide affordable units.
With the total cost of doing the three projects estimated at just over $1.2 billion, Bridget Gibbons, director of the Westchester County Office of Economic Development, said they “will continue to build on the tremendous growth under way in downtown White Plains as well as boost economic development and job creation in Westchester County.” The projects are expected to create more than 3,000 construction jobs and more than 500 permanent full-time and part-time jobs in the city.
Why are we doling out these tax breaks? The last I read the county was broke and looking to hike up the sales tax and this development will get built with or without these breaks.
And do these project stand any chance of being built with the current ConEd natural gas hookup moratorium in place?
IDA’s were created to advance economic development not give greedy landlords more money for residential apartments which over burdens the City and the property tax payer…