WPCNR MAIN STREET JOURNAL. November 28, 2006: The site of The Pinnacle on Main Street, the 171-unit condoplex planned by the Ginsburg Development Corporation is polluted with an undetermined amount of cleaning fluid, delaying the start of that complex indefinitely.
Ginsburg Development Corporation is negotiating with the Department of Environmental Conservation to determine the extent of the contamination and whether it has to be cleaned out before ground is broken, according to a story filed by Alex Philippidis in the Westchester County Business Journal Tuesday.
The White Plains Common Council should be intrigued. The Council gave The Pinnacle a stay of the date when Ginsburg Development has to post a guarantee to construct 52 units of affordable housing, 24 of which are to fulfill Louis Cappelli's affordable housing unit requirement in exchange for approval to build the Ritz-Carlton Westchester down the street. The extension by the Common Council to provide GDC more time to cobble state and county financing together for the affordable housing piece.
The Westchester County Business Journal's Alex Philippidis broke the pollution story today, in his report on the November 16 meeting of the Westchester County Board of Realtors. At the meeting, Andrew Maniglia, Vice President of Development for Ginsburg Development Corporation, revealed to the realtors that the land where The Pinnacle, the Main Street condoplex scheduled to go up this spring across from City Hall is contaminated with cleaning fluid dumped on the site in previous years.
Maniglia said Ginsburg Development is negotiating with the Department of Environmental Conservation to determine what the amount of the contamination perchloroethylene , a cleaning fluid, is and whether the company needs to remediate the deposit.
Maniglia reported Ginsburg Development has been in talks with the DEC to receive funding from the DEC “brown site cleanup fund” that has recently changed fund eligibility requirements so builders of condominums could use it to clean up their sites.
The pesky deposit of cleaning fluid creates a timing problem for Ginsburg Development Corporation.
The developer received an extension from the White Plains Common Council for it to get its financing together for the 52-unit affordable housing component of the project. That extension when The Pinnacle has to file a guarantee with the city that the affordable housing will be built expires in April, 2007.
Ginsburg Development Corporation agreed with Cappelli Enterprises to build the affordable housing units Cappelli Enterprises is charged with building as part of its 221 Main Ritz-Carlton Westchester project. The Common Council has staunchly maintained that unless the Ritz-Carlton affordable housing “share” is guaranteed to be built, the council would withhold a Certificate of Occupancy for the Ritz-Carlton, scheduled to open in ten months (September, 2007). With no ground broken, which the Pinnacle people had promised two months ago, it is virtually impossible to have any affordable housing units built by September 2007, let alone open.
Mr. Philippidis’ story may be read at http://www.westchestercbj.com/archive/112706/1127060003.php
To refresh your memory on the Council extension of the Guaranty Agreement, read the WPCNR report on this extenstion at http://wpcnr.com/article5145.html
The "Pinnacle Perch" is the second contamination of cleaning fluid revealed in the city this year, the other, a contamination of trichloroethylene (TECs) having been exposed by WPCNR to be harbored deep beneath the surface of the city dump for the last 35 years, apparently condoned by the Department of Environmental Conservation.
Currently the City of White Plains is conducting sensitive talks and determining procedures with the DEC as to whether that TEC deposit in the dump needs to be remediated. New Wells have been drilled based on the determination of a DEC hydrologist and test results are being awaited to gauge the current state of TEC contamination under the dump. The city has committed $1 Million so far to clean up the compost area in hopes of keeping that operation going. The DEC awaits tests on that contamination.
