White Plains officials are moving closer to adopting zoning changes that would allow retail and residential development along the city”™s Platinum Mile office-park corridor, with a vote on the measure expected as soon as August 6.
While office vacancies are rampant across Westchester, nowhere is the issue more prevalent than in central Westchester along the Interstate-287 corridor, business advocacy groups and elected officials have said repeatedly.
City of White Plains Mayor Thomas Roach said allowing for more flexible uses in the city”™s campus-office zoning district is “essential” to increasing occupancy rates.
“This is an issue for the entire county and really the region, because these types of office parks have a high vacancy rate right now and the likelihood in this environment of single-tenant occupancies riding in to save the day is slim,” Roach said.
For months, White Plains planning officials have been crafting amendments to the city”™s comprehensive plan that would allow office parks to be classified as “planned office development” districts and that would expand the various uses permitted in the campus-office district.
Under the 1997 comprehensive plan, which was last updated in 2006, uses in the campus-office district that lines I-287 are limited to traditional offices and office-related uses.
The amendments, if approved by the White Plains Common Council, would allow multi-family dwellings, commercial indoor recreation facilities, theaters, swimming pools, churches, public, private and nursery schools, scientific research facilities, retail locations and cafes, among other developments.
As proposed, property owners seeking to incorporate any of those elements would first be required to apply for status as a planned office development district. If approved, owners could then submit applications for specific projects.
The Common Council rescheduled a public hearing on the zoning proposal for its Aug. 6 meeting. Karen M. Pasquale, senior advisor to the White Plains mayor, said a council vote on the amendments could follow the public hearing that night.
The scheduled hearing comes as the town and village of Harrison are also discussing comprehensive plan changes to allow mixed-use developments on the Harrison stretch of the Platinum Mile corridor.
Roach said he believes there is strong support for the changes, particularly with the trend in Westchester favoring smaller occupants rather than major tenants like Nine West and its former Platinum Mile neighbor, Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide Inc., which relocated this year to Stamford, Conn.
“Years ago it was determined that this would be a place to have large corporations with hundreds or thousands of employees coming and going every day,” Roach said. “I think we”™re in a different place now in terms of technology and the way business is done…I don”™t think you”™re going to see a return to the same level of demand” for office space.
The city”™s campus-office district includes more than 2.8 million square feet of commercial office space.
Roach added that most of the proposed uses likely will not adversely affect businesses and residents around the office-park district. “This is not a forest that”™s being converted into a development project ”“ these are developed, large-scale office parks,” he said, noting that they already see significant vehicle traffic.
In order to preserve the city”™s open space and environmental character, any office parks approved as planned office development districts will be required to include outdoor recreational aspects such as bike paths and walking paths, said city Planning Commissioner Susan Habel.
