White Plains Grabs Seaburgh Building for DPW Storage
Just a few weeks after approving a $2.2 million bond for the purchase of the former Gerber building on Church Street to replace rented offices for the city’s building and parking departments, the White Plains Common Council is looking to acquire another vacant building, this time at 200 Westchester Avenue.
The former Seaburgh building, now owned by Consortium Properties LLC, is approximately 4,000 square feet and sits on a quarter acre off of Westchester Avenue close to I-287 in a light industrial zone. The building will be used by the Department of Public Works to store snow plows, water equipment and other items that need to be moved from the Gedney Recycling Yard while the landfill at the yard is being capped.
The vote for the $500,000 bond is on the consent agenda for the August 6 council meeting and is expected to pass. The purchase price of the building is $465,000, down from an original $1 million, and the remaining funds from the bond will be used for reconstruction. Because the building will be used for storage only, there is no need for the additional cost of a heating system.
At a special meeting of the Common Council on July 30, DPW Commissioner Joseph (Bud) Nicoletti noted that the location of the building was ideal because of its proximity to Westchester Avenue and existing DPW facilities in the area, especially those where trucks and other rolling stock are stored, and will make getting on the road to deal with winter road clean-up quicker and easier.
Councilwoman Milagros Lecuona noted at the meeting that the building is located at one of the major gateways to White Plains. She requested that the reconstruction design create “something special” for people to see as they enter the city.
Commissioner Nicoletti was also asked about the environmental cleanliness of the site because it sits next to an Exxon Mobil Gas Station that in 1980 had a gasoline leak in one of its underground storage tanks. Nicoletti acknowledged that at the time, the gas plume had extended onto the property at 200 Westchester Avenue, but in 1993 the Department of Environmental Conservation had declared it was satisfied that the problem had been remediated. Nicoletti further noted that current gas tank storage devices and anti-leakage technology had developed over the years and there was no danger from being located next to a gas station.
