Real Estate Weekly: Developers have starring role in Yonkers facelift

The city of Yonkers is putting the finishing touches to a facelift it began in the mid-1990s.

Plans are now in hand for a 1.3 million s/f retail/entertainment center, a new baseball stadium and at least 4,000 units of housing.

In addition, the city will soon issue a Request for Proposals on a 49-acre former industrial site on its western waterfront. Yonkers had already made significant progress since 1996, when the newly elected mayor John D. Spencer found himself in charge of a city with empty storefronts on Main Street, vacant warehouses and a high crime rate.

The city has recently finished work on a 116,000 s/f technology center, a new headquarters for DIAM International that will create 800 jobs and a 311-unit affordable housing complex. In addition, Yonkers is currently at work on the renovation and expansion of a 1 million s/f shopping center, the construction of a 150,000 s/f new office complex and the creation of several residential buildings on its waterfront.

But the true sign of its success might be the arrival of two celebrity developers--Forest City Rather and Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse--to the area.

Edward Sheeran, executive director of the Yonkers Industrial Development Agency, hopes that their projects, both of which will contain a significant number of residential units, will lure new residents to the area. Yonkers is just minutes away from midtown and a soon-to-be-established ferry service to lower Manhattan might seal the deal for many.

"We expect that a great deal [of people] will come from Manhattan," Sheeran says. "The prices will be much lower than in Manhattan and Yonkers is 19 minutes away from Grand Central Station, its part of Manhattan really. It's going to be very attractive to professionals who work in the city."

According to Sheeran, the Struever Bros. project, which is awaiting review by the city council, will finish the redevelopment of the lower west side of the Yonkers waterfront.

The project, undertaken in joint venture with Fidelco Realty Group, proposes the creation of a 6,461-seat stadium, 200,000 s/f of retail space and 3,200 townhouse and condominium units.

The Forest City Ratner development, called Ridge Hill Village, will include 1.3 million s/f of high-end retail, restaurants and entertainment venues, 160,000 of office space, 1,000 residential units and a 175-room hotel and conference center. The project is expected to create 5,485 construction jobs and 3,897 permanent jobs, in addition to bringing in approximately $56.8 million in annual tax revenues.

"That's going to be a major project and, of course, the spin-off is going to be incredible," Sheeran notes. "It will be like a village in the middle of a big city."

But even though the city has already spent about $3 billion on redevelopment, the IDA still has a couple of juicy projects up its sleeve. Sheeran says that, come December, Yonkers is going to start looking for a developer to build more housing on its waterfront. Another 51 acres of development land might come on line in 2006, when the city will have rezoned the area surrounding its former Carpet Mill plant.

And, of course, there will be the renovation of the Yonkers Raceway, which will include the creation of a 100,000 s/f casino. According to Sheeran, there will be somewhere around 45 acres of land available for redevelopment in that project.

The city of Yonkers is designated as a Federal Empowerment Zone and the New York State Empire Zone, making developers eligible for tax incentives.