On the Yonkers waterfront, the lights will go out and might head across the Hudson River to Orange County or New Jersey at a family-owned company that has been a business fixture in the city for more than 50 years.
At Altman Lighting Inc., a specialty lighting company serving the entertainment and high-end architectural markets, the future is uncertain, not for lack of customers but for lack of a location to continue manufacturing operations in Yonkers. And the company”™s CEO said he can”™t wait much longer for city officials to act before deciding in which direction his 130-employee operation will go.
A scale model in a conference room at Altman Lighting suggests that direction. It lays out the interior and exterior details of new company headquarters, designed by Piazza Architectural Associates in Katonah and proposed to be built in Newburgh.
In Yonkers, the company”™s Alexander Street plant is sited on six acres of property, half of which is under water and all of which is coveted by developers looking to profit from the city”™s plan to redevelop the blighted industrial corridor along Alexander Street as a high-density neighborhood near mass transit while opening the riverfront and the river to public use. The city”™s proposed master plan for the 1.3-mile-long, 112-acre waterfront corridor would require Altman Lighting and other businesses to relocate to make way for a mix of high-rise apartment buildings and townhouses, small retail stores and commercial office space.
“There are a whole lot of them,” Robert Altman, president and CEO of Altman Lighting, said of developers interested in acquiring the parcel at the southern end of Alexander Street. Hoping to raise the property”™s redevelopment value and command a higher price from a buyer, Altman and planning consultants recently proposed to the city Community Development Agency, headed by Mayor Philip Amicone, to increase the number of high-rise housing units and commercial space allotted to the parcel in the master plan.
The Community Development Agency received 500 written comments on the proposed plan and must respond to all before recommending a final plan for the City Council”™s approval. “I would suspect that we”™re looking at at least another couple months” before the agency makes its recommendation, mayoral spokesman David Simpson said last week.
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Altman said the city offered relocation space in the Nepperhan Valley Empire Zone. But the recommended four-story building is unsuited for company operations, which have been inconveniently spread across six or seven buildings on the waterfront site that Altman Lighting has occupied since 1970. “We need everything in one building on the ground floor,” he said. For the same reason, Altman eliminated the Stewart EFI plant on Central Avenue as a possible location. That manufacturer is scheduled to close by the end of this year.
“If I stay in Yonkers, for four or five acres you”™re probably paying $8- to 10-million,” he said.
Aware of the city”™s plans to redevelop Alexander Street, Altman three years ago purchased nearly 15 acres of undeveloped land in the Newburgh-Stewart Empire Zone in Orange County. Building a plant there, Altman Lighting would receive incentive tax credits, green-building rebates and a 10-year exemption on property taxes, Altman said.
“We have a Plan B if it”™s not economically feasible to stay in the city and find a site,” he said. Altman said the Newburgh property could be developed instead as the site of a commercial office building, luxury hotel and restaurant on the periphery of Stewart International Airport.
New Jersey too has offered tax incentives for the Yonkers company to relocate to one of several available existing buildings there, Altman said.
“If I go over right over the (George Washington) bridge, I can probably keep half my crew. If I stay within 10 to 5 miles over the bridge, at least I keep my team together.”™
Aside from that Jersey option, “If I don”˜t stay in Yonkers, I”™ve got to go 50 miles, 60 miles up the line,” he said. “I”™ve got to bust up my labor force and I”™ve got to retrain and relocate. That”™s the reality if I move to Newburgh.
“If we can find a place in Yonkers, I”™d like to stay. If nothing happens, I did what I had to do.
“I”™m nervous about not finding a place,” Altman said. “If I couldn”™t get out of here within a year or 15 months, it would be very difficult for me to strike a deal with a developer. They don”™t want to wait three or four years here.
“Before I move, I”™ve got to build up millions of dollars of inventory. I don”™t want to lose my customers that we spent 40 years building. It”™s got to be a seamless transition.”
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