A Minnesota company expanding to the East Coast plans to tear down a newspaper plant and build a fitness and recreation center on the largest office-park property on the market on Westchester”™s Platinum Mile corridor.
A real estate affiliate of Life Time Fitness Inc. recently applied to the town of Harrison for approvals needed to build a 209,000-square-foot facility at 1 Gannett Drive in Harrison, where The Journal News currently is headquartered. The daily newspaper”™s 38-year-old, 232,000-square-foot office and warehouse complex will be demolished to make way for the upscale two-story center, plans for which include 10 tennis courts, four squash courts, two pools, a gymnasium, children”™s activity center and yoga, cycling and advanced training areas.
Life Time Fitness is under contract to buy the approximately 22-acre property from Gannett Satellite Information Network Inc. Gannett, the parent company of The Journal News based in McLean, Va., in late 2009 listed the property for sale with CB Richard Ellis Inc. amid a series of downsizings at the Westchester paper and across the company”™s chain of newspapers. Printing and packaging operations were moved from Harrison to Rockaway, N.J., in March 2010, eliminating another 166 production jobs here. The Journal News recently reported about one-third of the 1 Gannett Drive building still is occupied.
To attract a buyer, Gannett initially planned to lease nearly half of the building”™s 143,000 square feet of office space. But with the prospective buyer asking town officials to approve a special-exception use for the property, Gannett reportedly is looking to relocate Journal News staff to leased space in the area. Westchester County had nearly 6 million square feet of vacant commercial office space at the close of 2010.
The proposed fitness center would be the second opened in New York by Life Time Fitness in its East Coast expansion. The company in January opened a facility in Syosset, Long Island. A company spokesperson said there is no schedule yet for the construction project and opening in Harrison.
Frank S. McCullough Jr., the White Plains attorney representing Life Time Fitness in the permit process, told Harrison officials the facility will create more than 200 permanent jobs.
The purchase price has not yet been disclosed.
Based in Chanhassen, Minn., Life Time Fitness is a publicly traded company that opened its first center in 1992. It has 91 centers in 21 states that employ about 19,000 workers. The company reported nearly $913 million in revenue in 2010.
I-Behavior renews lease in Harrison
I-Behavior, a provider of online consumer and business transactional data for multi-channel merchants, renewed its lease for 2,716 square feet of office space at 500 Mamaroneck Ave. in Harrison.
Jeffrey H. Newman, executive vice president of Malkin Properties, said the behavior-targeting marketer signed an early renewal in the Malkin-owned class-A office building.
I-Behavior, which provides clients with online and direct advertising campaigns, is headquartered in Louisville, Colo.
