Westchester is showing its age.
Not the people, but the cities”™ downtowns.
Empty storefronts, cracked façades, peeling paint, broken windows and litter along a street are the bane of the business improvement districts, better known as BIDs.
Downtowns were initially hurt by suburban flight and the proliferation of malls 30-plus years ago. Neglect of the buildings also hurt.
Today, demographics are changing with more people returning to urban living. Empty-nesters and young professionals are slowly returning to the cities”™ cores where once-blighted neighborhoods have been rehabbed.
Metro-North Railroad is on to something interesting locally with its TODs, or transit-oriented developments. The railroad wants to leverage its vast real estate holdings of rail parking lots to attract development.
Working in partnership with a municipality that has a rail stop and a substantial surface parking lot, Metro-North wants to build residential-retail buildings that would turn parking spaces into money-makers and tax-producers. This sort of planning supports the foundation of TODs ”“walkability and sustainability.
But a TOD is only half the solution.
Not only do residential buildings have to be created or rehabbed from old buildings, but the business districts need to entice residents.
Yonkers is a city that was moving in the right direction several years back. It still is today, albeit excruciatingly slowly. There was a perfect storm of positive development as Forest City Ratner proposed the Ridge Hill development and the Struever, Fidelco and Cappelli triumvirate pitched the downtown revitalization plan. Ridge Hill has finally opened. The downtown plan is moribund. All it has to show right now is the daylighting of the Saw Mill River near Larkin Plaza.
Yonkers city leaders squandered a treasure trove of development possibilities by not acting quickly. Who knows how many missed opportunities Yonkers was never made aware of as developers shunned a city they feared would be too costly to win over.
A city with savvy and forward-looking leaders who fast-track positive proposals can become a welcoming beacon to other developers.
But you don”™t always need an outside force to act as a catalyst for change.
New Rochelle is one shining example of a city on the move. And it”™s doing it without major developers or knocking down sturdy old buildings constructed at the turn of the 19th century. Instead, it is using adaptive reuse to instill a new vibe in its downtown.
Leading the charge is Ralph DiBart, the dapper executive director of the New Rochelle BID. Hired by the city as a consultant, he started the BID in 2000 after working with real estate developers in the private sector and as director of retail planning for New York City.
One recent wind-swept day in New Rochelle, DiBart gave John Golden, our Westchester bureau chief, a tour of the accomplishments built building by building and then block by architecturally restored block, now numbering 75 storefronts.
South Division Street, once a down-on-its-luck block between Main and Huguenot streets, is now a thriving business district with a row of smartly dressed and appealing shops and eateries. Up at the corner of Main Street, a construction crew is gutting and rehabbing space two and three stories up above retail for artists. DiBart points to the large windows and skylights, requisite for any artist studio. He greets the crew chief and commends him on the work. The workers listen in. Smiles all around.
DiBart too is happy in light of recent news that his BID was awarded a $500,000 grant from New York Main Street, a program administered by the state Office of Community Renewal. DiBart is doing it right as this is the BID”™s third grant from New York Main Street.
Ever modest, DiBart said, “The many owners who have invested in their properties and businesses in order to revitalize our downtown for the New Rochelle community are the real heroes. It is because of their hard work that ”“ despite the severe current recession ”“ we continue to see new businesses and restaurants opening and private investment continuing to increase in downtown New Rochelle.”
Let”™s hope other BIDs follow his lead in making their downtowns enticing to businesses and shoppers.
For tired-looking downtowns, change must come or municipalities will face the inevitable ”“ the loss of a tax base as small businesses find other places to go.
