Town, MTA, AvalonBay Celebrate Harrison's New Station Development

HARRISON, NY — Officials from Harrison, MTA Metro-North Railroad and AvalonBay Communities met Thursday to celebrate the completion of a groundbreaking mixed-use development project on the south side of the village's train station.

Though AvalonBay has built several transit-oriented development projects in Westchester, company officials said it was their most integrated and thoughtful transit-oriented development yet.

Housed on a 3.28-acre site on the south side of the station along Halstead Avenue, the development replaces the too-small surface parking lot with a series of pedestrian-oriented, four-story buildings lined with retail stores on the ground floor, a parking garage, and apartments on the upper floors, including seven affordable apartments subsidized by Westchester County.

A mixed-use building at the eastern end of the site creates a streetscape with direct entry for several townhomes and residential amenities at street level. The parking part of the structure provides 598 spaces of structured parking, of which at least 475 would be reserved for the public and commuters, an 85 percent increase over the 257 Metro-North-owned parking spaces that existed before. An additional 187 parking spaces for residents and 96 for retail customers will be located in another parking structure behind the first floor of the mixed retail/residential buildings on the western end of the site.

At the ribbon-cutting on Thursday, County Executive George Latimer said though he has gone through the area almost every day for 30 years, "I could never have foreseen that this strip of land could turn into this," he said. "Things that seem impossible can happen. It does take people with vision. It does take people with skill."

Latimer said he was glad the project, decades in the making and just 14 months in the construction, happened on Mayor Ron Belmont's watch.

Belmont, Harrison's mayor and town supervisor (it's complicated), will not run for office again when his term is up.

Speaking at the news conference, Belmont said he distinctly remembered working on planning for the project the first week he took office 10 years ago. "We have a great community here and this is going to enhance it," he said.

It's the first of its kind for Metro-North. The timing is excellent, said Metro-North President Catherine Rinaldi, pointing out that the railroad is about to resume 100 percent of weekend service to accommodate the visitors who head to Hudson Valley destinations in the fall.

SEE: $76.8M Transit-Oriented Development In Harrison