Chappaqua Crossing Owner Looks for Relief From Site Plan Conditions

The new Chappaqua Crossing owner is seeking relief from several site plan approval conditions to help it lease the complex’s vacant retail space and build a clubhouse rather than preserving an 1850s farmhouse.

Representatives for an entity called HPV IV Chappaqua LLC, which includes Heitman, a real estate management firm that now owns the center’s 120,000 square feet of retail, and Toll Brothers, which is building the 91 townhomes on the property, appealed to the New Castle Town Board to relax a handful of the project’s 157 conditions. The requests were first made in an Apr. 21 letter to the Town Board.

Heitman is asking the town to eliminate the 7,500-square-foot cap for carry-out food establishments at the center to help fill some of the vacancies, waive the 25 percent limit on a business’s floor area for the sale of alcoholic beverages so it can lease space to a liquor store, and allow dumpsters to be stored outside rather than inside.

Meanwhile, Toll Brothers is hoping to convince town officials that building a new clubhouse for the future 91-unit owners but using the existing façade of the more than 167-year-old Thomas V. Wright House near the Route 117 entrance would be advantageous because Toll could use the money it would save to refurbish the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center.

Felix Charney, founder of Summit Development, which built the retail component and adapted the cupola building into more than 60 apartments, said market conditions related to the pandemic are at the heart of the requests for the vacant retail spaces. The plan was to lease three spaces to restaurants, but only one is occupied – Sweetgreen, a fast-casual eatery specializing in salads and bowls that opened earlier this spring.

Traditional sit-down restaurants had initially been planned for Chappaqua Crossing, said Charney, who was asked by Heitman to speak on its behalf even though once Summit Development sells its office space at the center it will be out of the picture.

“At the end of the day, the conditions that are currently imposed upon us, we’ll have to live with, but I think there’s now an opportunity based on a little bit of hindsight, based on a little bit of logic and specifically when we get into the retail, based on some of the changes that the world has experienced through COVID, that are appropriate to revisit,” Charney said.

Since the onset of the pandemic, it has been difficult to lease space in part because of the uncertainties of retail and the restaurant business, but the restrictions have also contributed, he said. Heitman has the proprietor of a liquor store lined up if it can have the zoning code amended to take out the 25 percent of floor area limitation, Charney added.

Allowing carryout eateries would help to lease the spaces. However, under the current regulation, Chappaqua Crossing would be unable to accommodate two more businesses like Sweetgreen, which is about 3,000 square feet, because of the restriction.

“The shopping center is missing some energy and part of that energy was guided by food service and we’ve been unsuccessful doing so,” he said.

Supervisor Lisa Katz said she was concerned that if the 7,500-square-foot cap was waived, there could be an unlimited number of carryout establishments. She and Councilwoman Victoria Tipp questioned whether it would be premature to make that change until after the townhomes are occupied.

“So that, I think, would really change the dynamics of the leasing,” Katz said. “You will now have a built-in audience of people who live here but also who are going to the performing arts center and want to eat afterwards.”

Charney said it may be another three years before the residences are filled. Any establishments would have some seating but could be closer to Chopt or Chipotle than a white tablecloth restaurant, he said.

Councilman Christian Hildenbrand mentioned that the town has recently seen two sit-down restaurants open in recent weeks, a Mediterranean steakhouse near Walgreen’s and the Italian restaurant Basso 56 on lower King Street.

Summit Development Project Manager David Walsh said the interior dumpster requirement is also proving to be an impediment to attracting restaurants. He said it was also wrong that the town can leave its dumpster outside while forcing businesses to find a spot for it indoors.

“So it’s the hypocrisy of you being able to put a dumpster 50 feet from a house, where we want to put a dumpster hundreds of feet from any residence,” Walsh said.

Meanwhile, Toll Brothers wants relief from having to adapt the lower level of the Wright House into a clubhouse. Charney, who said he supports and appreciates historic preservation, mentioned that Toll Brothers rejects any notion that the building is historic.

The building is not in good condition and its interior would have to be rebuilt from the inside, he said. Charney told The Examiner that it’s been estimated that $850,000 could be saved and redeployed to improve the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center, which would benefit the wider community while the residents would get a clubhouse.

The plan would be to put the façade over a new clubhouse.

“If we build it new and build it proper, make it look like that, it will survive a long time to benefit everyone and the dollars that would otherwise have been used, we can then use to fix the auditorium,” Charney said.

Town Historian Gray Williams countered that the developer retained one of the area’s most respected architects connected to preserving old structures, Stephen Tilly, who concluded it would not be as prohibitive a cost to save and adapt the first floor for a clubhouse.

In 2019, the town and Toll Brothers reached an agreement where it would preserve as much of the house as possible, but it appears that the developer is looking to back out. Williams called it “a unique building” that has been little changed since it was built.

“They never wanted it,” Williams said. “They would rather say it would be expensive. I’ve seen the plans. I don’t think that’s really quite true. I think they’d have to submit a budget to prove it and measure it against the cost of building something else.”

Katz said the board would refer the retail-related items to the Planning Board and tentatively scheduled a tour of the Wright House for next week.