With nearly 6 million square feet of vacant office space in Westchester, the business community still has a long way to go as it hopes to draw new companies and jobs to the county.
Such was the opinion of panelists at the 2011 Westchester Real Estate Conference.
However, Robert P. Weisz, chairman and CEO of the RPW Group Inc. in Rye Brook, said that with the booming real estate market in New York City, a recovery is in sight.
“I think we”™re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel,” Weisz said. “New York City is on fire ”¦ as New York City becomes more expensive, Westchester is going to start finding deals that come our way.”
He predicted the county”™s commercial real estate market would start to see positive signs within the next 24 to 36 months and that while this has been a prolonged downturn, the local economy would bounce back.
“We go through cycles every five, seven or eight years. This has been a very deep cycle ”¦ but it is going to end.”
The conference, held July 13 in White Plains and organized by ScheinMedia, featured a quartet of the county”™s mayors and a number of influential members of the Westchester real estate community.
Among the topics discussed were the needs to make Westchester more affordable for businesses and their employees and to create a more social atmosphere within the county”™s six cities.
Yonkers Mayor Philip Amicone said the priority should be changing Westchester”™s reputation of being the most-taxed county in America.
“Right now, all people know about us in Westchester County is that we”™re the highest tax(ed) county in the country,” Amicone said. He proposed that businesses looking to create a foothold in Westchester should be offered significant tax breaks and incentives for the first two to three years after relocating here.
“We keep talking about being business-friendly,” Amicone said. “It”™s rhetoric. We have to prove it. It”™s a catchphrase that falls on deaf ears.”
Other ideas included the loosening of zoning requirements to allow for the repurposing of old office complexes and the need to invest in more affordable housing developments. Without such improvements, the county is likely to only see lateral movement of companies, said Dan Hartman, senior regional director of fund management for Wrightwood Capital, which has an office in Norwalk, Conn.
“It is one big game of musical chairs and that”™s the problem,” Hartman said, referring to companies such as Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide Inc., which is moving its headquarters from White Plains to Stamford, Conn. “There is no job creation.”
Comparing the flat rental rates in Westchester to relatively higher rates in the suburbs of cities like Boston and Washington, D.C., Justin Krebs, principal at Normandy Real Estate Partners, which has an office in White Plains, said that repurposing and reinventing unused office space could result in fewer vacancies and more retail developments.
“The infrastructure is there,” he said. “You do need to make the investment in the space.”
The supply of affordable housing continues to be a contentious issue for the county. “I think affordable housing is an important component of development,” said Mayor Thomas Roach of White Plains.
With more than 66,000 students enrolled in Westchester”™s colleges and universities, William Cuddy, executive vice president at CB Richard Ellis, which has an office in Stamford, said that Westchester must retain a higher percentage of the area”™s graduates.
“We need to build bridges for them to stay,” Cuddy said, adding that the most important consideration for the county should be building up a high-quality workforce.
Aggressive marketing needed
The “live-work-play” model that has been touted as the solution to boosting business has Westchester on the right track but businesses and local government officials must do a better job of marketing their cities to companies and working professionals, panelists urged.
Nearly all of the speakers touched on the importance of promoting the county”™s proximity to New York City, but Amicone said there needs to be a concerted effort to promote Westchester”™s attractions as well.
“We need to do a better job to make sure people don”™t always go to New York City for their entertainment,” he said.
Amicone, Roach and their two counterparts, Mayors Mary Foster of Peekskill and Noam Bramson of New Rochelle, all touched on the ongoing efforts to develop the downtown areas of their respective cities.
“We”™ve spent a lot of time the last three years making it (Peekskill) a place where people want to play,” Foster said, noting the investing of several million dollars spent the past few years on making the city”™s downtown area more attractive. Foster also touted the growing community of artists and the effect that movement has had on making Peekskill a cultural center.
