AvalonBay Communities Inc., a national real estate investment trust with a growing presence in the Westchester County luxury-rental market, has joined the company of developers with their sights on Yonkers.
With construction under way on Avalon”™s $143 million apartment complex in White Plains, company officials in Shelton, Conn., recently sent the Yonkers Planning Board a proposal to build a six-building complex of up to 450 apartments on a vacant 20-acre site on Austin Avenue. The wooded property, bounded to the north by the city and town of Greenburgh line, is owned by the Westchester County Industrial Development Agency. AvalonBay has leased the site from Morris Industrial Builders of New Jersey, developer of the nearby shopping center where Stew Leonard”™s and Costco stores are tenants.
The residential developer seeks a zoning change from a planned industrial district to allow for medium-density apartment houses on the site. Avalon proposes to build four three-story buildings and two four-story buildings with townhouse and garden-style apartments on 15.5 acres of the property.
The main entrance to the complex would be from an extension to Stew Leonard Drive that would bridge Austin Avenue and would be built by the developer.
AvalonBay officials will ask the Yonkers City Council to reduce the affordable-housing requirement from 20 percent to 15 percent of apartment units to make the project economically viable.
Over a two-year construction period, company officials expect the project to create about 500 construction jobs. Fifty permanent jobs are expected upon completion.
Headquartered in Alexandria, Va., AvalonBay Communities owns five high-end apartment complexes in the Westchester communities of Bronxville, Elmsford, Mamaroneck and New Rochelle, and two in Rockland County. Avalon White Plains, a 393-unit tower and townhouse complex going up on Barker Avenue, is due to be completed next summer.
Mark Forlenza, Avalon Bay vice president for development  in Shelton, last week said it was too early in planning to put an estimated cost on the project.
According to the company”™s Web site, AvalonBay as of June owned or held an ownership interest in 176 apartment communities containing 50,771 units in 10 states and the District of Columbia, of which 19 communities were under construction and seven were under reconstruction. The company also held future development rights for 53 communities.
The company has concentrated its nationwide investments in 16 high-barrier-to-entry markets with a low supply of zoned apartment land and with what the company described as “lengthy and contentious entitlement processes.”
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