New life for dead project
At 120 Bloomingdale Road in White Plains, the architect is the same.
The city-approved square footage is the same.
The project”™s cost estimate, at the low end, is the same.
The vision of high-end retail shops ”“ think Greenwich or Manhasset ”“ is the same.
But since the economy crashed in 2008, some things have changed in Westchester real estate.
At 120 Bloomingdale Road, the owner-developer has changed. So too has the brand name on a development that is much the same as that planned five summers ago.
In 2008, principals at Core Plus Properties L.L.C. in Stamford planned a fall groundbreaking for a new commercial use on their 6-acre property at 120 Bloomingdale Road ”“ the former Nestle Co. headquarters campus for which they and financial partner Black Rock Inc. paid $27.3 million three years earlier. White Plains city officials in 2008 approved site plans for The Venue on Bloomingdale Road, a $25 million retail project to be built on the parking lot of the four-story, 145,000-square-foot office building at 120 Bloomingdale Road whose anchor tenant is the state Department of Labor.
But the Core Plus development was delayed that fall by a quick-frozen credit market for developers and lack of demand from prospective tenants. By 2010, a special servicer of commercial mortgage-backed security loans in Dallas had taken over the White Plains property on which Core Plus owed about $20.4 million, according to county records. City officials in White Plains were left wondering what had become of the Stamford developer and the once-promising Venue project.
(Another special servicer of commercial mortgages in July took title to another Core Plus property, Briarcliff Corporate Campus in Briarcliff Manor. Core Plus Properties paid $20.6 million for the 15-acre, approximately 111,000-square-foot office park in 2005, the same year as its White Plains purchase.)
Four years after the Venue”™s planned groundbreaking, real estate investment partners in 2012 snapped up 120 Bloomingdale Road from the special servicer, J.E. Robert Co. Inc, for $10.5 million. Its short-term owner had allowed the city”™s approval for the retail project to expire.
But the new owners, a partnership of Caspi Development Co. in Purchase and Faros Properties in Manhattan, this year dusted off those abandoned plans. City officials this summer approved site plans for Heritage White Plains, which will include 42,000 square feet of retail space and 6,000 square feet of restaurant space, in addition to the two-level, approximately 500-space parking garage that was part of The Venue planning five years ago.
“It”™s a revival of what they (Core Plus Properties) proposed,” said Joshua Caspi, principal of Caspi Development. A luxury open-air center, Heritage White Plains will include from 12 to 18 boutique retailers, specialty shops and restaurants.
Caspi said the partners have selected Cushman & Wakefield Inc. as leasing agent for the project. “We”™re about to produce a really incredible marketing book,” he said. “We have a very specific list of people that we”™re going to take it to.”
“The campaign will be geared toward high-end boutique retailers that you”™d find along Greenwich Avenue or something like you have in the Americana in Manhasset,” a luxury shopping center on Long Island”™s North Shore.
“It will be like a lifestyle center for people to come to on a weekly basis” while shopping in a business area that includes The Westchester, The Source at White Plains and Bloomingdale”™s, Caspi said.
The developer has retained The Venue”™s designer, Arrowstreet Inc., as project architect. Based in Somerville, Mass., Arrowstreet has previously worked in the Boston area with Caspi”™s partners at Faros Properties.
Caspi estimated development costs at $25 million to $35 million, depending on the level of buildout done for tenants during construction.
The partners want to break ground in the first quarter of 2015 on a project expected to be completed in 18 months.
“We”™re excited to see this come to life at this point,” Caspi said. “It”™s been a long time coming.”