Moribund for two years, the renewal of downtown White Plains is showing signs of life again.
Two development partners in a dead high-rise condo project in the city have emerged from bankruptcy and a legal dispute with a former partner to float plans to build a $7 million to $10 million retail and office center on a downtown Main Street block in the shadow of City Center.
The approximately 50,000-square-foot project, Metropolitan Plaza, could be joined on the 200 block of Main Street, across from City Hall and Walmart, by a restaurant franchise and a yogurt shop in a building owned by another downtown developer, Louis R. Cappelli. A spokesman for Cappelli Enterprises Inc. recently said a Five Guys Burgers and Fries restaurant will open there this year beside a Blue Orchard frozen yogurt shop.
The food businesses, which will divide 4,000 square feet of space in the vacated one-story building at 238-240 Main St., are both owned by Five Guys Enterprises L.L.C., a suburban Washington, D.C. company with more than 550 burger restaurants nationwide.
Meanwhile, developers Anthony “A.J.” Rotonde and William Meyer and partners are seeking city approval of their plans for Metropolitan Plaza, a brick-and-glass complex that would revitalize a row of commercial buildings that includes a former A&P supermarket site. Rotonde said plans call for two floors of retail space of approximately 20,000 square feet each and 9,000 square feet of office space that would be built above 258-270 Main St. A second-floor retail arcade will connect to the municipal parking garage at nearby City Center.
Rotonde said a Florida company this summer will open a family-style Italian restaurant at 264 Main St. A Yoga Plus store will open at 270 Main St. in July, he said. Current tenants in the Main Street block, which include a liquor store, deli and Chinese restaurant, will be required to renovate their spaces “to bring up to 2010 standards” as a condition for their lease renewals, Rotonde said.
Rotonde said the developers are in lease talks with other tenants, including a national restaurant chain and sporting goods and electronics stores.
Rotonde and Meyer had partnered with Ginsburg Development Companies on a proposed two-towered high-rise condominium, The Pinnacle, and retail development on the same Main Street block. But that project fizzled with the economy and the widespread halt in development in recent years.
Mired in legal and financial disputes arising from the stalled project, the developers”™ company, Ridgemour-Meyer Properties L.L.C., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2008. As part of the bankruptcy plan, the company ended its legal disputes with lenders and partners in 2009 and agreed to pay $5.7 million to Ginsburg Development to settle the Valhalla developer”™s claim on the Main Street property.
“It”™s history,” Rotonde said of the bankruptcy reorganization and lawsuits. “Those days are over.”
“The window of opportunity has passed for residential development ”“ at this time anyway,” Rotonde said. “We think we have more of an edge here on retail in the downtown business district.”
Rotonde said the Metropolitan Plaza proposal initially has received “a pretty favorable response” from city officials. The developers expect to present the project to the White Plains Common Council in June.
Another restaurant franchise and future neighbor to Metropolitan Plaza, Buffalo Wild Wings Grill, plans to enter the White Plain market with a September opening at the corner of Mamaroneck Avenue and Main Street. It will replace the Italian eatery Zannaro”™s at 1 Mamaroneck Ave., the former bank building that is part of the City Center retail and entertainment complex. Relocations to the 8,000-sqaure-foot space will begin after Zannaro closes this month.
Four M Capital L.L.C., of Valhalla, will operate the Buffalo Wild Wings Grill, the ninth chicken-wings restaurant opened by the company in New York and Connecticut. “The Mamaroneck Avenue location at City Center provides a great opportunity to take advantage of a prime location in the heart of downtown White Plains and the heart of Westchester County,”™”™Â James Bitzonis, president of Four M Capital, said in a prepared statement.
While designing the restaurant space, the operator will maintain the original bank”™s landmark architecture, Bitzonis said. The former bank vault, now a dining area, could be used as a Hall of Fame gallery featuring sports memorabilia, he said.
Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minn., Buffalo Wild Wings Inc. is one of the top 10 fastest-growing restaurant chains in the U.S. Two-thirds of its restaurants are franchised and one-third are company-owned.
