White Plains apartment complex opens; more on the way

The Halden, an apartment complex that has repurposed part of the RPW Group’s office park property at 1133 Westchester Ave. in White Plains had its formal opening on July 11 as the city’s Common Council was set to vote at its regular August meeting on a special permit for another apartment complex in a different part of town.

The special permit would allow for the third phase of the Brookfield Commons project to move forward. Brookfield Commons is a joint venture of the White Plains Housing Authority and Trinity Financial at the 9.3-acre site of the Winbrook Houses public housing development. It was conceived to replace the aging five apartment buildings in Winbrook.

The second phase of the redevelopment was completed in April of last year with the opening of a new 9-story building with 129 apartments. The $64 million building has been named “The Overture.” The first Brookfield Commons phase was completed in 2016 and has 103 affordable apartments in a 9-story building that cost $42 million. The third building would be in an “L” shape with an 11-story section and a 9-story section and contain 174 apartments.

Thomas Brown, vice president of development for Trinity, told the Business Journals that it’s expected that the third building would cost approximately $100 million.

“We’re very happy with the progress. We’re really enjoying our partnership with the Housing Authority and the residents and the City of White Plains,” Brown said. “Our philosophy is to maximize the amount of affordable housing. We know how important high-quality, affordable housing is. We also want to build strong communities.”

Brown said that the architecture of the building and equipping of the apartments will be on a par with the other development that is taking place in White Plains.

“We believe that there should be no difference in he quality of an affordable housing unit and a market-rate unit,” Brown said. “We fell that our residents deserve the same level of quality as residents n market-rate buildings. The new residents who come into our community really appreciate that.”

Brown indicated that while the Brookfield Commons concept called for replacing the five original Winbrook buildings, there may ultimately be a sixth building as part of Brookfield Commons.

“We’re still working through the master plan for the site, but it could be five or six and the project also is going to include green space,” Brown said. “This is in line with what we’ve developed in our projects up and down the Northeast Corridor.”

For White Plains Mayor Tom Roach, the opening of The Halden and the progress made in the Brookfield Commons development are fresh signs of the city’s success in bringing in a variety of housing developments that include Gateway II that is under construction on Hamilton Avenue near the Metro-North station, The Mitchell that recently opened, Hamilton Green on the site of the former White Plains Mall, the anticipated redevelopment of The Galleria site, conversion and new construction at the former AT&T site at 440 Hamilton Ave., and a workforce housing project planned for 8 Chester Ave.

“You don’t get these projects unless you have a city that is attractive to people: they want to live here, shop here, businesses want to locate here,” Roach told the Business Journals. “We are constantly focusing on the next step, how to we make things better. I think it’s paying off. The variety of projects that we have happening here right now is pretty astounding. We are leading the way on affordable housing so we are incorporating that into all of these projects.”

Roach said that his experience during a lifetime of familiarity with White Plains is that people from all economic strata have been welcome and as mayor he’s been working to ensure that continues.

“A federal housing rolled out in the 40s and 50s it created islands,” Roach said in describing the often isolated public housing from those days. “They were very stark, not architecturally friendly. Everyone is entitled to wake up in a place that’s safe and clean and that they’re proud to call home.”

The Halden is a three-building complex that was built on an approximately 20-acre section of the RPW Group’s 70-acre office park at 1133 Westchester Ave. by RPW and Cleveland-based The NRP Group. Jonathan Gertman, senior vice president of development for NRP, said that the complex already was approximately 50% leased as of the official opening.

The Halden features a mix of 178 one-bedroom apartments, 115 two-bedroom and 10 three-bedroom apartments. Nineteen of the units are priced in the affordable category for people making 60% of the Westchester Area Median Income.

At the opening day ceremony, Gertman expressed what he termed “deep pride and satisfaction” with the way the construction went. He also recalled that the Covid pandemic impacted the construction timeline when New York state imposed restrictions on various business activities.

“We worked socially distanced, we had supply chain issues,” Gertman said. “We had a 400% spike in lumber costs. In the end, that is not going to be the story of The Halden. To me, the indelible takeaway of this project is working together to do something significant and worthy under challenging circumstances.”

Gertman said that when the city created an overlay zone to allow new uses at office park sites, it laid the groundwork for the project. He also said that the support of the Westchester County Industrial Development Agency was vital to making the project happen.

Roach said that years ago city leaders saw an issue developing with corporate parks along I-287 and in other parts of the county and that more flexibility was called for in deciding what could and could not be done at those properties.

“That’s when the overlay came up, that’s when it was put in place, and this is a great example of what we had in mind,” Roach said. Roach said that he foresees people living at The Halden who will walk across the parking lot to their jobs in the 1133 office building.

Andrew Weisz, president of the RPW Group, said, “This was grassland, part of a parking lot, and now we stand here three years later: 303 units that is thriving and I think we’ve created something quite unique here — one of the first true suburban live/work environments in the county and in the region. I’m particularly proud of that.”