WCBJ
WESTCHESTER COUNTY
BUSINESS JOURNAL
YOUR ONLY SOURCE FOR REGIONAL BUSINESS NEWS | westfaironline.com
April 1, 2013 | VOL. 49, No. 13
tOWNS eye ReValuatiON tO StOp ‘BleediNg’
INSIDE
ON THE MARKET • 4
BY SAM BARRON sbarron@westfairinc.com
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GUARD YOUR WORTH • 5
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Changing terrain page 2
David Gentner, president and CEO, Wartburg Adult Care Community
evaluation has become a viable fix for revenue-strapped municipalities in Westchester. Greenburgh and Yonkers are among 12 municipalities preparing to revalue residential and commercial properties, many of which have not been assessed in 60 years. Municipalities across the county have been hemorrhaging money in recent years as property owners have filed successful tax certioraris to lower their property tax burden. Certioraris, filings by property owners claiming their tax bill is too high, have increased in Westchester from 894 in 2006 to 9,068 in 2012. Yonkers and Greenburgh have the most tax certiorari filings in the county. The city of Yonkers will be forced to borrow more than $10 million to settle 3,500 cases. Greenburgh Supervisor Paul Feiner said Greenburgh loses $10 million a year on tax certioraris. Bronxville, Rye and Pelham have been doing revaluations over the last 10 years, while Revaluation, page 6
Hospital claims architect negligent BY JOHN GOLDEN jgolden@westfairinc.com
Hudson Valley Hospital Center (HVHC) officials claim an internationally known New York City architectural firm was a negligent malpractitioner when it designed a new building for the Cortlandt Manor hospital that did not comply with state and local building and safety codes. The hospital seeks a court judgment requiring the firm, Perkins Eastman Architects P.C., to pay an unspecified amount in compensatory damages and additional costs. The design errors resulted in extra work costs and construction delays that put the project more
than $2.2 million over budget, attorneys for the hospital claim in a complaint filed in March in state Supreme Court in Westchester County. Completed in 2010, the approximately $110 million project added more than 100,000 square feet of space to the 128-bed hospital on Crompond road. The project included construction of a fourstory, 83,000-square-foot patient tower. Perkins Eastman signed a contract with HVHC in 2005 for the architectural and interior design work. The 32-year-old planning, design and consulting firm has designed numerous health care facilities nationwide, including the Elizabeth Seton Pediatric Center in Yonkers, a 165,000-square-foot Hospital, page 6
From left, Ted Miller, Kris Ruby and Brandon Mendelson
SOCIAL MEDIA • 3