Developer Donald J. Trump already had a state park added to the slew of hotels, casinos, office and residential towers, golf courses and resorts that bear his name. Now he has a plaque to show for it.
His donation a year ago of 436 acres of undeveloped land along the Taconic State Parkway in Westchester and Putnam counties inspired the state of New York to confer that eponymous honor on the flamboyant developer and signs on the parkway attest to Trump”™s gift. It also inspired the Friends of Westchester County Parks to present Trump with its inaugural Green Space Award at the organization”™s recent annual fundraising dinner at the Glen Island Harbour Club in New Rochelle.
Trump in the mid-1990s acquired the 154-acre French Hill tract in the town of Yorktown and the 282-acre tract Indian Hill tract that straddles the Westchester-Putnam border in Yorktown and Putnam Valley. “I never really had any plans for it,” he said before accepting the award. “I just thought it was great land.”
According to a previous Business Journal report, however, the billionaire developer”™s plans to develop a residential golf course community there were thwarted by Yorktown officials. In a fact sheet issued at the awards dinner, Friends of Westchester County Parks said he decided to donate the land rather than develop projects that would compete with his new Briarcliff Manor development, The Trump National Golf Club and Residences.
Valued in excess of $100 million, the two donated tracts include extensive woodlands, open meadows and wetlands east of the parkway.
Administered by the Taconic Region of the state Department of Parks and Recreation, the tracts lie to the north and south of Franklin D. Roosevelt State Park. The French Hill property is within the New York City watershed. State parks officials are developing master plans for future uses of the park.
“Take good care of this land,” Trump told the dinner audience. “I don”™t think you”™ll have any problems doing it.”
In a video spoof accompanying the award, Westchester developer Louis Cappelli, Trump”™s friend and business partner, worried that Trump”™s new “green” reputation might make it harder for Cappelli to get the OK of municipal officials for his high-rise building projects that bear the Trump brand ”“ as at Trump Tower at Westchester in White Plains and Trump Plaza in New Rochelle.
Alluding with a straight face to Trump”™s reputedly outsized ego, Cappelli noted his donation was named the Donald J. Trump State Park; the video showed a plethora of green highway signs trumpeting the new addition to the park system.
The Friends of Westchester County Parks presented its annual Best Friend Award to County Executive Andrew J. Spano for his “vision and leadership” in acquiring parkland and preserving green space.
Spano was unable to attend the dinner because he was in Milan, Italy, as a keynote speaker at – aptly enough ”“ a parks conference.
Â
Â
