Mt. Kisco Business Community Airs Grievances About Downtown

As Mount Kisco faces a spiraling number of vacant storefronts, members of its business community brainstormed last week about how to return the village’s once bustling downtown to its former glory.

The meeting, organized by Mayor Michael Cindrich and other village officials, attracted about 40 people to the Mount Kisco Public Library for a spirited two-hour roundtable that addressed a wide variety of issues that may be contributing to the downtown’s challenges.

Cindrich said that while restaurants and other service industry businesses are faring well, other merchants are struggling.

“It seems to me that the hard goods, the retail businesses that sell products, are having a difficult time, while the service businesses are having an easier time,” the mayor said.

Some of the stores that were shuttered, such as Cosi and Borders, had been profitable locally, but their parent company left the area or went bankrupt.

Cindrich added that he has been a longtime advocate for the creation of a business improvement district (BID) that would allow business owners to have a greater stake in the downtown.

There are currently more than 20 empty storefronts on South Moger Avenue and Main Street. Eight of those storefronts are owned by Friedland Properties of New York City.

Company representative Marc LaPointe placed blame squarely on the village for allowing downtown to deteriorate. He said potholes, neglected sidewalks and ongoing parking woes made his company skeptical of a Mount Kisco rebirth.

“My employer doesn’t have hope that the parking problem is going to be resolved,” LaPointe said. “The joke is that you could ride a lawnmower on the sidewalk to cut the grass coming through the brick. It’s not the landlord’s property; the town is not maintaining what it should be.”

Anthony Chiappinelli, who leases several buildings in the village, said at least some of the woes can be traced to a local law passed in 2009 that made the application process lengthier and costlier for potential tenants appearing before the planning board.

Another property owner later echoed that sentiment, saying he had lost an important tenant due to an approval process that lasted 18 months.

“People just don’t want to spend that kind of money to (have) a board rule on whether or not they can become a tenant in Mount Kisco,” Chiappinelli said. “We lost a tenant in our building that just couldn’t afford all the rigmarole that has been put up front with these new procedures.”

Chiappinelli was one of several speakers who complained the pedestrian bridge at the south end of the Shopper’s Park parking lot connecting it to East Main Street remained closed, making it difficult for store employees to park in the Blackeby lot. That, in turn, led to employees’ cars taking up space reserved for customers.

“I’ll bet we have a third of the spaces taken up by folks that work here,” he said. “So that bridge is an important key to helping generate parking availability.”

Cindrich said the bridge would be replaced before September.

Jonathan Gordon, who works with the village through his company Admiral Real Estate Services Corp. of Bronxville to lure tenants, said the changes in the 2009 law have not allowed the village to recover from the recession as successfully as some other municipalities. Gordon also urged the village to streamline its business application process and for zoning code changes to allow more service-oriented businesses.

“We’re competing against the Internet,” Gordon said. “Our zoning code, the way it’s written right now, is geared towards soft goods retail. That’s exactly what Amazon sells. We need to allow restaurants, entertainment, fitness, all things the current zoning code requires higher (amounts of) parking, which needs to be waived.”

Parking woes was one of the issues raised by Tiger Lily boutique owner Cathy Deutsch. She said residents who parked in meter spots all day were keeping customers away.

“They send their children down hour after hour to feed the meters, which blocks our customers from those spaces,” Deutsch said. “I complain frequently, but when the parking attendants come, they say there is money in the meter and there is nothing they can do. They do not chalk car tires. I’ve asked them and they say they don’t have the manpower to monitor it. I tell them to come back in a few minutes to give them a ticket but they say no, that’s entrapment.”

Deutsch also said meters in Shopper’s Park malfunction and sometimes fail to print receipts. Another problem is that drivers seem to be unable to add time using a smart phone as offered by the machine’s vendor, she added.

Deutsch complained that downtown appeared shabby, a sentiment echoed by several other speakers.

“The sidewalks are cracked, there is garbage around all of the tree bases, there are not enough trash receptacles and we do not have enough flower planters,” she said. “No matter how you cut it, there needs to be more (flowers) hanging or placed strategically around the town. It doesn’t feel loved.”

Another issue that was addressed was long-term leases. Mount Kisco Seafood owner Joe DiMauro said the length of leases scare away many potential merchants.

“I think more and more entrepreneurs want to come into the town, they want to fill up these empty stores if they had some kind of guarantee from the landlord,” he said.

Karine Patino and her brother, David, spoke on behalf of their parents, business owners who speak English as a second language. Patino said there seemed to be tension between the business community and the Mount Kisco Building Department, which at first she thought was directed at Latino merchants. But hearing that other shop owners had similar complaints is something that needs to be rectified.

“I think the lack of respect we’ve been feeling, it hasn’t just been at our side,” Patino said. “Now that I see and hear it’s from everyone else, I can’t say it’s against just Latinos. It’s a problem and it needs to be addressed now.”

Patino also urged the village to hire more bilingual employees and improve communication online and through social media to alert the public.

“The only reason I heard of this meeting is I received e-mails that I signed up for,” said Patino. “Did my parents or other business owners ever get a flyer saying that this meeting was happening? No. Did we get a phone call? No. You can access the page on the Mount Kisco website, but not everybody is going to do that.”

The village website will be updated and revamped soon, and would make meeting agendas and other events more easily accessible, said village Trustee Karen Schleimer.

A follow-up meeting may be held in September to continue discussion on the topics raised at last week’s meeting, Cindrich said.