WPCNR SUNDAY BAILEY. Column By John F. Bailey. May 6, 2007: It’s quiet. Too quiet in the White Plains downtown. It’s time for another Super Developer Master Move blockbuster to dumbfound the Common Council.
White Plains Skyline. The Ritz Carlton is in center of picture. Photo, WPCNR News Archive.
While pundits’ attentions are being diverted by the City of White Plains lawyer-architect-engineer-consultant –developer welfare program known as the “Bank Street Job,” on the expressway to approval by the Common Council, the Super Developer continues to lurk seeing all on the vast chess board of opportunity in downtown White Plains.
It is Saturday evening and perhaps as he is returning from a posh event resplendent in tuxedo, or perhaps in his Trump Tower condo, hands pyramided staring out to the west towards the western border of White Plains, or maybe he is in the Bahamas unable to get White Plains off his mind and the juicy lots just awaiting his touch.
Perhaps, unable to sleep at Trump Tower, he is at this moment sitting at his blueprint strewn desk (A Very Developing Place) punching out and adding up combinations of square footage, seeing what property combinations are needed to get up there where the profit is there (50 stories or more in the transit hub of White Plains), and adding and subtracting “affordable housing units,” putting the Super Developer’s final tweaks on yet another new bold initiative in the White Plains downtown.
The Alexander The Great of developers, the Super Developer, months away from opening the Ritz Carlton on Main Street – may be restless, bored. He may be in his complex plotting his next March to the West in White Plains with his trusty companion at his side, as he ponders and pressurizes his developer rivals on the vulnerable and so developable tracts of opportunity in White Plains.
Perhaps as he ponders Main Street, he may at this moment – as persistent rumors portray – be negotiating to add the White Plains Mall property to his portfolio (though this has been steadfastly denied by the Super Developer entourage). Perhaps he is looking at the vacant lot adjacent the bus terminal directly in front of the train station, or he may muse why not purchase the St. John’s school now up for sale.
Or as he cocks his head, eyes gleaming, why not acquire all three plots and really build something?
Should he acquire just the White Plains Mall…he could dispatch his legal lancers – to activate the city of White Plains tool he has used before – the transfer of development rights legislation to transfer the rights over the city center municipal garage over to the White Plains Mall since it is diagonally connected to his Ritz-Carlton complex and the City Center-City Center garage-Trump Tower complex. Perhaps, enabling him to transfer affordable housing from the Corner Nook site and the City Center Municipal Garage site over to the Mall, bus terminal parking area or St. John’s site.
The possibilities may intrigue him. Should I acquire all three developable sites or one? The idea of creating a swath of Cappelli inspiration all the way to the White Plains Railroad Station might appeal to his sense of cosmopolitan grandeur.
More to the point, should the Super Developer think on it – if Martin Ginsburgh decides The Pinnacle project is no longer something he wants to do – the Super Developer could acquire that site too – making most of Main Street “Cappelli Street,” and creating Trump Tower TWO to have a conversation with Trump Tower ONE and a meeting with Mr. Ritz and Mr. Carlton.
Yes, if I were Louis Cappelli, that is what I would be thinking and use the transferring of development rights on my existing sites to build on new sites I’d acquire.
He might even acquire The Pinnacle site – he could combine stories, housing units – and retail into a city super strip. Perhaps exceeding 50 stories and higher somewhere West of the Ritz Carlton, on either the White Plains Mall site, the bus terminal vacant lot (adjacent the bus terminal), even the St. John’s school site on Hamilton Avenue. The transfer of development rights is a unique mechanism that allows so many options.
The Pinnacle site, White Plains Mall, the Bus Terminal vacant lot, the St. John's School his mind if the Super Developer is not tired of White Plains may be thinking a series of scenarios
What hasn’t the Super Developer yet built in White Plains?
A convention center with housing on top (to compliment the Ritz-Carlton property. Perhaps a gambling casino (far-fetched, maybe, but the state is going to need a ton of money in two years to balance the giveaways this year – and hey, the sales taxes would be great). A sports arena seating 10,000, (perhaps on the empty Centrex lot). Or, here’s a twist: He could build an affordable housing mixed use site on the St. John’s site.) An upscale mall to combat The Westchester.
It takes a mind like the Super Developer to conjure this march to the west. And he is far more seeing than I. If I can think of this -- he must be thinking of something even better for White Plains if he gained these properties I mentioned.
Who knows what lurks in the mind of the Super Developer?
I believe we are about to find out soon -- and it will be a wallapalooza.
