New Rochelle Main Street Core Project Agreement Delayed

A memorandum of understanding to a preferred developer of the Main Street Core project will have to wait a while longer.

The New Rochelle City Council withdrew from consideration at Tuesday's meeting a resolution issuing the agreement with Garden City-based Albanese Organization, Inc.

The memorandum would have enabled Albanese to begin an environmental study of a development that could bring changes to New Rochelle's downtown area, including a replacement for the dilapidated Church Street parking lot, along with 550 housing units and about 8,000 square feet of retail space, if built as currently proposed.

Mayor Noam Bramson said there were a number of concerns and questions raised by council members that the city staff would like to try to resolve before the legislative body acts on the memorandum.

"I am not personally of the belief that all of these issues need to be resolved in the MOU," Bramson said, "but I respect competing views, and if it's possible to address these concerns, it is worth doing so."

Among the concerns, he said, were the ratio of market rate units in the project to affordable housing, the proposed phasing of new parking construction and whether the project—if it got no further than the the initial build out—would benefit the city.

Under the memorandum, Bramson said, the developer would assume all costs for the environmental review.

The initial phase, as outlined by Albanese Executive Vice President George Aridas at a previous council session, would begin with the construction of a five-level parking garage on the site of the current Prospect Street lot, that would contain about 360 covered parking spaces, plus about 180 street level spaces.

A mixed-used rental housing building along South Division Street with 106 units would be built at the same time. Sixty percent of the units would be at market rate, with the remaining at workforce housing levels. Eventually the breakdown of housing would be 80 percent a market rate.

Construction could begin on a seven-level parking structure with 570 spaces that would replace the Church Street facility, along with a residential building, would be built next.

Additional mixed-use buildings would be constructed to lessen the visible impact of the parking structures.

Town homes along Prospect Street would be the final construction of the project.