The Yonkers Industrial Development Agency today tentatively approved financial incentives for a private residential school looking to rebuild on its 55-year-old campus in the city.
The IDA board agreed to back a three-year, estimated $23.4 million construction project at Ferndale Manor, a school that currently serves 67 residential and day students with severe developmental and physical disabilities on its six-acre city campus at 1154 Saw Mill River Road. School officials plan to build a two- story school building to replace trailers and nearby leased space for classes and erect 11 six-person residences. The existing 100-year-old residential building will be renovated as administration offices.
City officials said Ferncliff for many years has been seeking alternative sites in Yonkers and Greenburgh for its outmoded campus. Yonkers officials said the campus project will keep 200 Ferndale Manor jobs in the city.
The city IDA authorized $707,688 in sales tax exemptions on project construction materials and a property tax abatement that will be negotiated. Ferncliff Manor”™s proposal still must be approved by three state agencies, the Education Department, Office for Persons with Developmental Disabilities and Office for Children and Family Services.
“We”™re especially pleased that the children who live at Ferncliff and the people who care for them can continue to stay in Yonkers,” Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano, who is also IDA board chairman, said in a press release. “Ferncliff has a long and proud history in Yonkers, and we look forward to writing a new chapter with the kind of modern facility that these children deserve. I hope the state agencies will move quickly to approve the plan.”
