Cross County Shopping Center to Get $100M Upgrade

The facility, which this year marks the 50th anniversary of when the first shovel went in the ground on the development, will undergo a major renovation program that will reposition it as a modern open-air neighborhood community shopping center, Brooks officials state.

Part of the new retail space to be built will include an 11,000-sf expansion of the Sears store and a 40,000-sf expansion of the existing Macy's location. It also calls for the construction of two new anchor stores of 80,000 sf and 40,000 sf, another major retail location of 25,000 sf and three freestanding restaurants.

The plan also calls for improving current parking facilities, the construction of a new five-level parking structure and a host of other infrastructure improvements aimed at improving access to the site.

"We intend to bring the center completely up to date, make it more attractive and functional, a much more contemporary and exciting place to shop, eat and relax," says John Usdan, project director for Brooks Shopping Center Inc. Usdan adds that the project should take about two years to complete. The reconstruction and expansion efforts will be conducted with minimal interruption to shoppers, he notes.

Alfred B. DelBello, a partner in the law firm DelBello, Donnellan, Weingarten, Tartaglia, Wise & Wiederkehr, LLP, who is representing Cross County in its dealings with the city, says a site plan for the renovation/expansion project will be filed with the Yonkers Planning Board in the near future.

He stressed that while the plan calls for some new construction, the new retail space will not impact the surrounding residential neighborhood and will be built on the existing blueprint. The project is expected to create hundreds of jobs during the construction phase and will add almost 300 positions upon completion of construction that will bring the payroll at the complex to more than 2,200 workers. DelBello says that the preliminary job cost estimate of the project is in the area of $100 million. He adds that tenant demand for the new space is high. However, he notes that at deadline negotiations were ongoing and that no firm lease transactions had been signed.

Cross County was built in 1954 and opened in 1956 by developer Sol Atlas. The complex currently totals nearly 1.2 million sf of rentable space and is anchored by Sears and Macys. The complex also includes a multiplex theater and a Stop & Shop Supermarket and is managed by Midwood Management.