WPCNR WEST SIDE STORY. By John F. Bailey. December 13, 2004: Mayor Joseph Delfino’s vision for White Plains, as he continues to makeover the city of his birth, will turn its attention to the city’s nondescript West Side, specifically the South Lexington Avenue and East Post Road-West Post Road cross roads, according to Common Councilman Arnold Bernstein.

BRINGING IT BACK? The original Schulman- Potenza Plan for revitalizing the South Lexington and West-East Post Road area. Area target is between the dotted lines. Plan is from March, 1996.  Photo by WPCNR News.

Councilman Arnold Bernstein reports to WPCNR that the Mayor’s office has confirmed to him that the stretches of South Lex and the Post Road have an appointment for a makeover in the Spring. Bernstein, speaking to WPCNR last week, said that the Mayor plans to involve the neighborhood  of Winbrook and Fisher Hill in a community dialogue for ideas, direction, and input on how it might be achieved.

Bernstein confirms what two other Common Councilpersons have said were rumors they had heard of a West Side upgrade last week.

The dialogue with neighborhood never been done. 

WPCNR interviewed the merchants of fifteen business establishments along the East-West Post Road corridor and on the West Side of South Lexington last week and they said they had not heard of any specific plans for the area brought to them by the city.

View of South Lexington Avenue, Across from Winbrook complex, December 4, 2004.  Photo by WPCNR News

SCENE OF POSSIBLE DEVELOPMENT: Townhouses might be built on city-owned vacant lot, and on the rest of the West Post Road block up to Calvary Baptist Church on Orawaupum Street (red awning). Shown December 4, 2004. Photo by WPCNR News.

REVERSE ANGLE VIEW, Looking down East Post Road. Buildings on left (North Side) of Post Road were included on the former Schulman-Potenza Plan. The Winbrook complex, far left, is not included. Shown December 4, 2004. Photo by WPCNR News

More interestingly, all said they had never been approached by the city for their ideas on how the chock-a-block appearance of the South Lex-Post Road corridor could be improved.

Though the Winbrook housing complex, home to 2,000 persons, the most densely populated area of the city on South Lexington Avenue looks neat and displays manicured grounds, the line of stores across from the residential complex,  has no ambience, is all-too-frequently home to itinerant street-drinkers and loiterers many not from the complex itself.

A very social street.

South Lexington Avenue, as any resident of the area will tell you is badly in need of a redesign, or at least enforcement of the loitering and anti-street drinking ordinances.

The same description can be said for the East Post Road-West Post Road stretch, home to a collection of car dealerships, restaurants and delicatessens, though thriving with walkins from the neighborhood, and a step above the line of establishments on South Lexington in appearance, could use an architectural facelift at the very least. A major construction project completely changing the ambience was once planned, and the rumored townhouse construction previously reported by WPCNR is supposed to be the start.

More than a facelift.

However, a facelift is more than the Planning Department had in mind when this idea was first proposed according to former Councilman Bill Waterman, (“The Councilman in Exile”). Waterman says that during the Mayor Sy Schulman Administration a plan was introduced by Planning Commissioner, Joseph Potenza and Deputy Commissioner of Planning (at the time) Susan Habel (now Planning Commissioner),  that would condemn two  swaths along South Lexington Avenue and East Post Road, converting most of the area to moderate and affordable housing. Waterman remembers the housing was going to be for workers of White Plains Hospital Medical Center.

Eminent Domain Imminent?

Waterman expressed the opinion that at the time of the Schulman-Potenza plan, the area fit the definition of “a blighted area,” which would have enabled the city to use powers of eminent domain to condemn the properties and acquire them for the massive project.

It is unknown at this time whether the City plans to use those eminent domain powers in what Bernstein thought was going to be  “The Mayor’s Revitalization Plan 4.”

It is not known at this time whether Mayor Delfino’s revival of this plan would be restricted to simply low to moderate and affordable housing or be  a combination of low and moderate as well as middle and upper income housing.

A New Story for the West Side

The Mayor’s plan is scheduled to begin, according to our sources with turning the city-owned vacant lot on the corner of South Lexington and West Post Road, and the stretch of restaurants-salons-delis  up to Calvary Baptist Church into moderate and affordable housing town houses to be built by “a prominent local developer.” So, far, who this “prominent local developer” might be has not been made public.

CROSSROADS MAKEOVER: The corners of Lexington Avenue and Post Road. Townhouses are said to be planned to occupy the vacant city-owned lot (shown below) to the left center out to Orawaupum Street, extreme lower left. Photo by WPCNR News.

CITY OWNED LOT: Destined for Gentrification? Photo by WPCNR News.

NEWS TO THEM: WPCNR interviewed fifteen restaurant, salon, grocer and deli operators on the West Post Road--South Lex block a week ago. None of them knew anything about the rumored city plan to take over the block. However, one tenant on West Post Road (in the phantom path of the townhouses) did reveal that the owner of his building was shopping the property. The West Post Road block, December 4, 2004. Photo by WPCNR News.

A salesperson employed by the car dealership across the street complained that his dealership has attempted to buy the vacant lot from the City of White Plains but has been rebuffed, as has another car dealership in the neighborhood. The rumored plan is that the phantom townhouses would be built on the Lexington Avenue to Orawaupum Street block, across from Calvary Baptist Church.

Speaking of Calvary Baptist Church, which plans a building of a new sanctuary at a cost of $2 Million, of which half has been raised, their minister, Lester Cousin says he has never heard of such a plan and was busily seeking more information from the city Planning Department.

About 20 to 25 Owners Involved.

Eleven individual owners on Lexington Avenue, and four individual owners on West Post Road, and ten individual owners have to be dealt with in order for the city to acquire the properties.

The area selected for revitalization on the original plan ran from the corner of Orawaupum Street and West Post Road on the West down East Post Road to the corner of East Post Road and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, and from the corner of Fisher Avenue, South on the West side of Lexington Avenue.