City OKs sale of failed Yonkers high-tech center
A Yonkers real estate owner-manager and building contractor aims to attract top U.S. technology companies to a Nepperhan Avenue industrial building that the city of Yonkers and private owners in the last decade were unsuccessful in developing as a high-tech business center.
- 470 Nepperhan Ave. in Yonkers.
The Yonkers City Council this month approved the $7.5 million sale of 470 Nepperhan Ave. to Lewis Gjelaj. The four-story, 116,000-square-foot property formerly was occupied by the Purdue Frederick Co. and is part of the historic Alexander Smith & Sons Carpet Mills complex on Nepperhan Avenue.
Gjelaj said the building is about 80 percent vacant. The Yonkers Industrial Development Agency and Yonkers Fire Department have offices there.
A longtime owner of commercial and residential real estate in Westchester, Gjelaj is property manager at Gjelaj & Sons Inc. and has owned a construction company in Yonkers since 1974. The approved buyer, who has not yet closed with the city on the purchase, said he wants to renovate the building and “bring some real companies” like Google and Amazon as high-tech tenants there.
“I believe this building was hidden,” Gjelaj said. “It”™s an excellent location but I don”™t think it was exposed to the Fortune 500” companies. “I think it”™s an excellent spot. I”™m very excited. I always thought Yonkers was a hidden suburb to the five boroughs and people pass right by it.”
Branded N-Valley by Yonkers economic development officials, the building was envisioned by previous mayoral administrations in Yonkers and renovated and equipped as a high-tech business incubator. In 2006 the building was acquired by National Resources, a Greenwich-based redeveloper of industrial properties, and renamed iPark N-Valley. The Greenwich company also owns and operates iPark Hudson in the former Otis Elevator Co. factory complex in downtown Yonkers.
In 2008, the Academy for Medical Development and Collaboration, a Manhattan-based consortium of 26 New York medical schools, academic health centers and research institutions, announced plans to open a $10 million shared-use mouse facility for genomics research at iPark N-Valley. The project has not advanced.
In 2012, the city began foreclosure proceedings against iPark N-Valley LLC, claiming the company defaulted on a $3 million mortgage at 470 Nepperhan Ave. and an additional $1.7 million loan from the New York Power Authority.
The developer claimed the city”™s actions and lack of action had left iPark N-Valley unable to perform its obligations in the agreement. The company cited the Yonkers Fire Department”™s refusal to pay for its occupancy of 14,000 square feet of office space in the building and the fire department”™s adjacent storage facility at 460 Nepperhan Ave. and the Yonkers Industrial Development Agency”™s failure to pay its required share of real estate taxes and electrical expenses for its N-Valley office.
The dispute was settled out of court in 2012 and the city dropped its foreclosure action.