4 | CLEAN POWER JUNE 12, 2017 | VOL. 53, No. 24
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Developers pitch plans (and hopes for tax breaks) in Mount Vernon BY BILL HELTZEL bheltzel@westfairinc.com
F Playtime in Peekskill
riday June 2nd was a day for dreams in Mount Vernon. A half-dozen real e s t a t e d e ve l o p e r s pitched plans for projects. If every one of their ideas comes to fruition, a half-billion dollars in investments would create more than 1,200 dwellings. Their ideas ranged from projects ready to break ground to concepts that are still aspirational, from low-income housing to luxury living, from maintenance of existing housing stock to transformational propositions. About the only thing they had
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Spins Hudson manager Alex Zabawski stands atop the new aerial ropes course at Charles Point Marina in Peekskill.
in common was the desire for financial assistance from the city. And that’s how developers’ day began Friday morning at a meeting of the Mount Vernon Industrial Development Agency. The first request was for a doover. Greater Centennial AME Zion Church operates 12 buildings and 158 apartments south of downtown. Built 40 years ago, they are some of the oldest low-income housing in the city. Property taxes had already been abated, and in 2014 the developer borrowed $13.8 million to renovate the buildings. No one thought about the payment in lieu of taxes agreement, » MOUNT VERNON, page 6
Death of in-store retail? Not likely, say industry pros BY ALEESIA FORNI aforni@westfairinc.com
H
olding up a copy of a recently printed cover story titled, “Retail is F*cked,” John Barrett, president of the Commercial Investment Division of Hudson Gateway Association of Realtors, posed a question to a group of real estate professionals.
“Is retail dead?” he asked. James M. Aries, senior vice president and director of acquisitions at Urstadt Biddle Properties Inc., did not hesitate. “You see that all the time, and there’s clearly truth to that,” said Aries of articles like the one Barrett referenced. “We believe that we’re not immune to the retail problems in the wake of e-commerce and economic cycles, but we believe that our
program is built to be safe.” Based in Greenwich, Urstadt Biddle focuses primarily on grocery-anchored shopping centers and service-oriented retail, segments that Aries believes customers still prefer to visit in person. “I think there’s been a healthy streamlining in retail,” he told the audience at Hudson Gateway headquarters in White Plains. “A lot of the weaker guys are out.” Aries was one of five panelists
addressing the state of the retail market in the Hudson Valley at the June breakfast meeting of HGAR’s Commercial Investment Division. Jonathan Gordon, president and CEO of Admiral Real Estate Services in Bronxville, agreed with Aries that headlines predicting doomsday for retail are nothing new. “Retail has been under attack for the last century,” he said. “Forty years ago, you had 300
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department stores. Today, you have about 30. Before, the malls were going to kill the downtown. There’s always going to be a new evolution, it’s just a matter of how does the market, the landlords and the tenants respond to those changes. The ones that are flat-footed are going to go under, and I think the days of a 300,000-square-foot Macy’s are limited.” » RETAIL, page 6
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