White Plains to Consider Adaptive Reuse Projects

WHITE PLAINS, NY-Faced with a still struggling economy and a lack of demand for space at its older suburban campus office parks in the I-287 corridor, the city of White Plains is looking to attract investors to repurpose some of those properties.

In an address to visiting commercial brokers and investors on Wednesday at ArtsWestchester, White Plains Mayor Thomas Roach said the city will be flexible with development proposals for some of the city’s older office properties that are located outside of the central business district. Most of the properties that would be candidates for adaptive reuse were built in the late 1960s and 1970s and are currently suffering high vacancies.

Mayor Roach told GlobeSt.com that the city is currently considering legislation that would tweak the city’s master plan to allow for greater flexibility in its zoning, particularly for properties that are zoned for campus/office use.

“We are going to look at ways to repurpose,” Roach said. He told luncheon attendees of the Westchester County Association’s “City Showcase” program that the city will also look to streamline the approval process in cases where alternative uses for commercial properties in the eastern section of the city are being proposed.

Mayor Roach’s presentation was part of the event that drew more than 150 commercial brokers and investors to White Plains. Part of the program included a bus tour of the city that featured stops at 18 of the city’s top commercial and retail properties inside and outside of the CBD.

William Cuddy, executive vice president with CBRE, said the city’s downtown district, which was the focal point of most development activity in Westchester County until the recession took hold in 2007, is still a strong office market. However, older campus-styled properties on Westchester Avenue adjacent to I-287 (the Cross Westchester Expressway) are finding it difficult to fill space. He said the vacancy rate in the Eastern District of White Plains is in the mid 20% range, while the CBD’s office vacancy rate is approximately 17%. Cuddy is also chairman of the WCA’s “Blueprint for Westchester” economic development and marketing initiative, which has a goal of helping fill three million sf of vacant space in Westchester County.

Mayor Roach said that the city would be looking for mixed-use developments, including residential use for investors looking to repurpose existing office properties. While those uses could also include retail, he said the city would likely not be interested in big-box type retail.

Cuddy praised Mayor Roach for promising municipal approval flexibility that could allow for adaptive reuse projects at the suburban office parks in the outlying sections of the city. He noted that the neighboring village of Harrison has approved successful adaptive reuse initiatives at commercial office buildings along the I-287 corridor on a parcel-by-parcel basis.

Some of the adaptive reuse projects have included the conversion of 400 Westchester Ave. into a campus building of Fordham University. Most recently, Life Time Fitness reached an agreement to purchase the current Journal News property at 1 Gannett Drive. The Chanhassen, MN-based fitness company will be demolishing the 232,000-sf building and replacing it with a more than $40-million, 209,000-sf fitness facility. The Journal News will be relocating to a little more than 30,000 sf of space at 1133 Westchester Ave. in White Plains by September to make way for the demolition of its former headquarters and printing operations to commence.