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For a businessman with the resources to fight a turf war with Columbia University while investing $30 million in downtown Yonkers real estate, Nick Sprayregen keeps a humble office.
Past a crowded back room of office workers”™ cubicles and down a narrow locked corridor in a busy West Harlem storage warehouse (“Stop Columbia! We Won”™t Be Pushed Out!” read large banners in English and Spanish hung from the four-story brick building at Broadway and 131st Street), his office has no windows. A television sits amid working clutter on the carpeted floor and children”™s photos line a wall and table beside the desk of the 44-year-old president of Tuck-It-Away Self Storage, a family-owned company with 1.2 million square feet of space in 15 commercial buildings in Manhattan, the Bronx and, most recently, Brooklyn. On the opposite wall hangs a photo montage of Sprayregen at the New York City Marathon, one of 20 marathons the lean, goateed executive ran before his “consuming” battle with his expansion-minded, eminent-domain-seeking Ivy League neighbor began over lunch three years ago.
Framed magazine covers showing Bruce Springsteen and a signed photo of The Boss framed with a miniature replica of his guitar are propped at floor level in front of the tucked-away boss”™s wide desk. “I”™m a huge, huge fan of his,” he says.
In the last 16 months, Sprayregen has become a great fan too of Yonkers, the city of redevelopment and rising promise of profit that is a quick 10-mile drive north from his office. Though a new and previously unknown entry in the competitive field of Westchester County real estate players, Rising Development Company L.L.C. (named after Springsteen”™s 2002 tribute album to 9/11, “The Rising”), of which Sprayregen is managing member, has committed “close to $30 million,” he said, to gain control of 14 properties, several of them vacant and deteriorated, in a downtown area whose focal point is historic Larkin Plaza.
“That”™s been all equity with no debt,” he said of his company”™s Yonkers acquisitions, “so we can afford to be patient with our investments.”
His broker in those deals?
“It”™s really myself,” Sprayregen said at his desk, behind which warehouse-security monitors adorn the wall. He shrugged. “I”™m the guy.”
In doing that, the marathon man has sprinted to outbid rival developers, including Streuver Fidelco Cappelli (SFC) L.L.C., the three-company partnership chosen by city officials as master developer for the commercial, residential and civic transformation of downtown Yonkers. The SFC team”™s proposed three-phase, $3.1 billion mixed-use development plan for downtown was a key attraction that brought New Rochelle-raised Sprayregen to Yonkers last year.
River walk
The first phase, a $1.5 billion project under review by the Yonkers City Council, includes uncovering the Saw Mill River in its course through Larkin Plaza to the Hudson River as part of the city”™s Urban Green Space Initiative. Mayor Philip A. Amicone also plans to create a river walk esplanade that would run through the Nepperhan Valley into downtown and further transform Larkin Plaza from a glorified parking lot to an inviting public space.
“That”™s a very important aspect of our view of what”™s going on in Yonkers,” Sprayregen said of the city”™s and developer”™s plans for Larkin Plaza. His properties “would be overlooking that area, right on top of it, more or less.”
In his main property assemblage, Sprayregen controls most, and seeks to acquire all, of the irregularly shaped commercial block on the south side of Larkin Plaza that is bounded by Main Street, Warburton Avenue and Post Office Square.
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Just south of that block, his purchase of 36 Main St. came with a colorful corner wall mural, depicting Henry Hudson”™s arrival among the natives on the river and scenes from Yonkers history, which dominates Riverdale Avenue.
In his only residential purchase in Yonkers to date (Rising Development also began investing last year in Bronx and Manhattan apartments), he has gutted run-down apartment buildings at Overlook Terrace, which rise east of North Broadway and, as Sprayregen pointed out with enthusiasm, afford a splendid hilltop view of the Hudson. Rents will rise in the rent-stabilized residences after renovations there are completed, he said.
In June, his completed property deal at 40 Larkin Plaza spawned Rising Publishing, L.L.C. and made Sprayregen the publisher of a chain of nine weekly community newspapers formerly owned by Martinelli Publications. “Citizen Kane,” he said of himself jokingly.
Unlike Hearst or Murdoch, however, Sprayregen has been a largely hands-off publisher and largely unseen by the papers”™ eight-person staff. With the first issue under his ownership, he did add color to newspaper pages and outsourced printing to a Queens company. He said he has no plans to sell a business that came with the real estate he and rival developers coveted.
“We”™re looking to expand the newspapers as well,” he said. “We believe it has tremendous potential there. In many of the communities that we have a newspaper in, it”™s been a mainstay for decades and decades.”
Sprayregen voiced grander plans for his Larkin Plaza block that are in tune with the growing chorus of “smart growth” advocates among developers, Realtors and city officials in Westchester County.
“I envision it at this point as a perfect location for a transit-oriented downtown,” only a short walk from the refurbished Metro-North Railroad station and the Yonkers water taxi that this year began ferrying commuters to Manhattan. Yonkers is closer to Manhattan, Sprayregen noted, than other mixed-use development sites beside mass transit centers in White Plains, New Rochelle and Stamford, Conn.
In developing his main assemblage, “I feel that the emphasis will be on large-scale offices ”“ financial services firms,” he said. He also envisions an “upscale, very day-to-day market” mix of first-floor retailers, such as Starbucks and Barnes and Noble, serving visitors, workers and residents in “a 24/7 downtown.”
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Financial service tenants
Rather than risk big money in a speculative development, Sprayregen said he would like to secure a major financial services firm as tenant before going ahead with an office-building project, “so they could design a space according to their needs. That would be one ideal choice on how to deal with that.”
Sprayregen said he recently retained Gensler, a San Francisco-based architectural and design firm with Manhattan offices, “to put together a very significant plan of what we want to do” in Yonkers. “I think they can be an integral part of our development team,” he said.
Peter Klein, vice president of New Jersey-based Fidelco Realty Group, said his SFC team has been well aware of Nick Sprayregen”™s competitive run on downtown real estate. “We always knew additional developers would participate,” he said.
“His assemblage creates an excellent development project area and we”™re excited about his development in the downtown,” Klein said.
Both he and Sprayregen said there are no plans at present for SFC and Rising Development to become partners in downtown projects. Sprayregen said he agreed with Mayor Amicone, who told him in a private meeting that he would rather see five developers working on separate Yonkers projects than joining together as one.
“He”™s absolutely right,” Sprayregen said. “There”™s enough to go around. I think the
mayor is handling perfectly the resurgence of Yonkers.”
At City Hall, “His name is well known,” Yonkers spokesman David Simpson said of Sprayregen. Yet the Manhattan businessman”™s plans for his downtown properties have been a mystery and cause for concern in the mayor”™s office.
“The mayor is very pleased to welcome another investor in Yonkers,” Simpson said. Yet, “He doesn”˜t want to see anybody stockpiling land and coming into Yonkers and buying up land for land-banking purposes.” With banks now willing to finance large-scale development projects there, “The mayor takes the view of striking while the iron is hot.”
“To date we”™re still waiting for what he has in mind,” Simpson said of Sprayregen. The developer has not applied for city permits to demolish any of his properties, he noted.
“I think he”™s very early on in the project,” Simpson said. “It”™s very encouraging that he”™s hired an architect.”
“We have assured the mayor that it is not our goal to sit and land-bank or to flip the properties,” Sprayregen said. “But at this point we are not looking for additional investments in Yonkers because we do want to see movement on the opening up of Saw Mill River at Larkin Square. It”™s important that we see that start moving ahead.
“With the ever-rising costs in Manhattan, I think there will be a continuing demand for residential, as well as office in downtown Yonkers,” he said. “I think it”™s a good place to be investing funds and some place I want to be for many, many years to come.”
At his West Harlem office, Sprayregen indicated he is as committed to staying the long haul in Yonkers, just as he is fighting in court and in the community to keep Columbia University and the state from taking over and razing his family”™s five commercial properties there to make way for a $7 billion, 17-acre development project. Sprayregen, who heads the West Harlem Business Group opposing the university expansion, said he has the financial resources and the will to carry that battle to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“I do not take going into Yonkers lightly,” he said. “Like anything I do, if I do it, I do it strongly and aggressively, like fighting Columbia, running my business.”
In the successful business his father started 27 years ago with one West Harlem warehouse, “We”™re never sellers of real estate,” Sprayregen said. He plans to keep it that way in Yonkers.
