White Plains Council Okays Site Plan Extension for Post Maple Project
The White Plains Common Council voted unanimously on Jan. 7 to provide a one-year extension for site plan approval for the Post Maple 77 LLC project to give the developer, Grid Properties, more time to attract commercial tenants to the mixed use development.
The Boulevard development is located at a site bounded by Maple Avenue, West Post Road, S. Lexington Avenue and Rathbun Avenue.
The development would include about 220,000 square feet of rentable space for retail and fitness uses; 12 townhouses; a self-parking garage with about 720 parking spaces, valet parking for 82 additional spaces, 54 satellite parking spaces as needed and 37 joint use parking spaces for all uses of the property.
The plan calls for the developer to pay a $36,000 recreation fee to the city.
The original site plan approval was okayed by the Common Council in November 2016 and was extended in March 2018.
Though she would vote to approve the extension for The Boulevard, Councilwoman Milagros Lecuona expressed concern about the current condition of the property. “It is a very, very large site that is really impacting the entire neighborhood,” she said. “It has become a parking lot with no end.”
The fence surrounding the construction site should be visually improved, Lecuona said. One possibility would be to have an art project for artists and students to beautify the fence. “Let’s keep on working with the community,” she told the developer.
“This is an unusual site,” Mayor Tom Roach said. “This was an old, beat up series of car lots with several derelict buildings on them that were actually a problem for us in terms of public safety. So in a sense, the demolition on this site was positive, it cleaned up the site.”
Roach said the city would work with the developer to maintain the fence properly. Parking on the site is being shared with community groups, he said.
Councilwoman Nadine Hunt-Robinson said she has lived near the development site for 20 years and she wants to reinvigorate the area. Hunt-Robinson asked for an update on the project.
Mark Weingarten, an attorney representing the developer, told the Common Council his client would work with the city to beautify the property.
“This is a very complex project” because of the changes in the retail industry, Weingarten said. “Sometimes patience is required.”
The owner of the property, Grid Properties Principal Drew Greenwald, said his development was proposed to meet the retail demand in the area. “In the current retail environment there are a number of reasons that projects are moving slower,” he said. “Retailers have been rethinking a lot of their strategies.”
Greenwald said potential retail tenants for the project have made changes during negotiations in an effort to bring to consumers the best experience. Several potential fitness tenants have come forward, he said. “I want to make sure that the tenants we select are going to be around long after the project is built.”
Greenwald said he wants to beautify his site. “I love the mural idea. It’s something we’ve done in the past,” he said, adding he was also willing to do some plantings on his site.
Councilman Dennis Krolian said he was disappointed with the lack of progress in attracting commercial tenants to the site. “We had high hopes,” he said. “I feel let down.”
“This is a gateway from Scarsdale into White Plains,” Krolian said. “You really owe us some improvement.”
Hunt-Robinson said, “family orientated retail” should be part of the project with facilities such as trampolines and sky diving simulators. “We don’t have enough family orientated programming in White Plains,” she said. “There’s a market there.”
Hunt-Robinson said she has been skeptical about bringing fitness facilities to the site. Greenwald replied that fitness is only about 12 percent of the planned commercial development. “We see this as a mix of uses,” he said. Dance programs and other family and youth recreation facilities could be part of the development, he said.
