The office manager at a downtown White Plains law firm, Frank Simone had tired of the two-hour cross-river auto crawl to his home in Rockland County and the 6 a.m. starts from Nyack to avoid the rush hour traffic.
“That Tappan Zee Bridge will kill you,” he said last week at his new digs in Summit at City Center, where Simone last month moved into a one-bedroom duplex apartment as a successful applicant to the city of White Plains affordable rental housing program. His downtown abode, furnished and decorated with the former antique-shop owner”™s eclectic collection of art and antiques, is about a three-block walk from his work at the Barker Avenue law office of Milber Makris Plousadis & Seiden L.L.P.
Summit at City Center is a 24-unit luxury apartment complex recently built by Cappelli Enterprises Inc. The apartments, rented at below-market rates set by city officials, satisfy part of Valhalla-based developer Louis R. Cappelli”™s requirement under the city”™s five-year-old housing program to set aside 37 units of the nearby Residences at the Ritz-Carlton condominium development as affordable housing.
A Cappelli spokesman last week said the remaining 13 required units will be leased at market rate by the developer in other affordable rental buildings in White Plains. Those currently are One City Place at City Center, Bank Street Commons Apartments, The Gramercy and The Avalon White Plains.Â
With a New York Sports Club as upstairs neighbor and the City Center parking garage downstairs, Summit includes 10 studios, seven one-bedroom apartments and seven two-bedroom units. Monthly rents including utilities range from $1,422 to $1,777 for a studio; $1,626 to $2,031 for a one-bedroom apartment and $1,828 to $2,286 for a duplex two-bedroom apartment. They are available to singles and families whose household incomes average 80 percent of the Westchester County median income. Westchester area median income for a family of four ”“ the U.S. Housing and Urban Development”™s base measure ”“ is $101,600. For a family of four, 80 percent average median income is $81,300; for one-person household it”™s $56,900.
Summit apartments include marble baths and heated marble bathroom floors, walnut floors and cabinets, granite counter tops, stainless steel appliances, walk-in closets, full-size washer and dryer and wall-to-wall carpeting in living rooms and bedrooms. Some of the building materials came from the developer”™s Ritz-Carlton and Trump Tower at City Center construction projects. Â
“It”™s a great apartment,” said Simone, having walked there on his lunch break. “It”™s roomy, it”™s spacious. I roll out of bed and I”™m at work. It”™s a find.”
That tucked-away luxury find already has been found by apartment-seekers. White Plains Planning Commissioner Sue Habel, whose department administers the affordable housing program, last week said all one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments there are taken if all applicants pass credit checks.
Of 335 rental units designated as affordable housing among private developments approved by city officials, 175 have been built and 24 are under construction, Habel said. The city program receives no federal or state funding, she said. Priority is given to active and retired employees of the city or White Plains School District, applicants who live and work in White Plains, retirees living in White Plains and people like Simone who work in the city and wish to reside there.
“It really is affordable,” said Simone. “It”™s a great thing to have in a city. I didn”™t even know (the affordable housing program) existed. It was a quick process and it was painless.”
The office manager laughed. “I still say to myself, ”˜They”™re going to throw me out any day.”™”
