Westchester County legislators recently gave their go-ahead for legal action to collect more than $1 million the county claims it is owed by a downtown Yonkers developer as reimbursement for rent paid by two county offices while waiting to relocate to the developer”™s adapted industrial property.
The developer, National RE/sources, of Greenwich, Conn., contends the county is seeking free rent for the period in question and a reimbursement more than 10 times greater than what the county”™s lease terms with the company provide.
In Yonkers, the Greenwich company has redeveloped two once-prominent industrial sites for mixed use, the 800,000-square-foot former Otis Elevator complex near the Hudson waterfront and a 100,000-square-foot Nepperhan Avenue plant, as i.park Hudson and i.park N Valley, respectively. The county in 2006 signed a 20-year lease at 131 Warburton Ave. with the former owner of the Otis Elevator property that was later taken over by a National RE/sources entity, i.park Westchester L.L.C.
The county Department of Social Services planned to move its Yonkers office from Alexander Street and a Medicaid office in New Rochelle to the 100,000-square-foot i.park facility by Jan. 1, 2008. The new office, however, was not ready for occupancy as scheduled, forcing the county to pay an additional five months”™ rent in Yonkers and eight months”™ rent in New Rochelle that together totaled about $1,012,000. County officials claim the county”™s amended lease require the developer to reimburse that entire amount.
“I think there frankly is a lot of confusion,” National RE/sources President Joseph Cotter said last week, when told about county legislators”™ approval to move ahead with litigation. Cotter said a “concept” requiring the developer to pay holdover rent ”“ excess rent charged by a landlord to a tenant whose lease has expired ”“ was added to the county lease. The holdover rent paid by the county was less than $100,000, he said.
The developer never agreed to pay the county”™s occupancy costs for the time during which the relocation was delayed. “This concept of free occupancy for a five-month period before they moved into our building, we have no idea where that”™s coming from,” he said.
Cotter said he had not heard from county officials about any legal action.
