The Starwood Capital Group is seeking a zoning change from the village of Port Chester to turn the old United Hospital there into a mixed-use complex.

A spokesman for the Greenwich, Conn.-based firm said that “no specific decisions have been made” as to what precisely would be built on the 15.4-acre site, which is strategically situated on historic Boston Post Road at the crossroads of the I-287 and I-95 corridors near the village of Rye Brook, the town of Rye, the city of Rye and the town of Greenwich.

But according to a master plan submitted last year to Port Chester”™s Board of Trustees and available on the village”™s website (portchesterny.com), Starwood would transform 720,000 square feet of hospital and ancillary buildings ”“ vacated in 2005 after the hospital went bankrupt  ”“ with 1.1 million square feet of retail, office and residential space, parking for some 2,000 vehicles and twice as many open areas as previously existed.

The master plan for The Gateway Port Chester Mixed Use Development, as it is being called, pairs some 254,000 square feet of low-rise office and retail space with residential buildings, including five low- and high-rises that would contain about 762 units. Parking would be available beneath a plaza and courtyard that would be studded with trees and framed by roadways within the complex. The plan also calls for the replacement of a 13-story apartment building at 999 High St., operating at 32 percent capacity, with affordable housing.

The Starwood spokesman stressed that this is only a conceptual plan.

“We haven”™t applied for a building permit,” he said.

But the company is nonetheless preparing a draft environmental impact statement. Among the questions the DEIS will have to consider are concerns raised by the city of Rye about the effects that the redevelopment might have on that municipality, including on a business district that has been feeling the recession”™s punch of late.

In an e-mail to the Business Journal, Rye city Mayor Douglas French enumerated other issues:
“1. There will be a significant change in traffic patterns in the area, which will impact our school and residential neighborhood.?2.  The significant increase in height of the property will greatly change the visual landscape and should be clearly studied for alternative visual aesthetics.?3.  The increase in the footprint will greatly impact the effects of storm water and we would like to see proper storm-water remedies in place.?4.  The increase in population will have a greater demand on mutual aid services and should be properly analyzed.”

Added French: “As an interested party in the project that borders our city, we were pleased with the outreach from (Port Chester) Mayor (Dennis) Pilla to get us involved early in the process ”¦ Rye and Port Chester are good neighbors, and we want to ensure that these impacts will be properly addressed in the planning process.”

Another possible consideration is the proposed placement of bus rapid transit stops near the complex as part of the Tappan Zee Bridge/I-287 Corridor Project to create a new bridge and buttress it with mass transit. That project is now undergoing its own environmental impact study.

Built around 1889, New York United Hospital filed for bankruptcy in December of 2004 as debts mounted and attempts to stem the tide, like a proposed 2000 merger with White Plains Hospital Center, faded into memory. In 2006, Starwood, a privately held global investment firm with roots in the real estate markets, bought the land on which the former United Hospital sits for $28 million.

By the Numbers

Starwood

Founded: 1991

Assets: As of the end of last year, Starwood had completed more than 400 transactions representing some $25 billion in assets. The firm has created three public companies that have acquired an additional $20 billion in assets. It has about $16 billion in assets under management.

The team: 40 partners, 150 professionals.

Locations: Eight cities (San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, London, Paris, Luxembourg, Mumbai and Tokyo), plus the global headquarters in Greenwich.
Source: starwoodcapital.com