Workforce, luxury development to be steps from New Rochelle train station

NEW ROCHELLE – Two major development projects are scheduled to rise along Garden Street starting in fall 2020. While they have some similarities: both are slated to be mixed-use and have close proximity to the train station, they differ in terms of rental rates. One would be all affordable housing; the other would be mostly market rate.

Here's a look at both projects:

26 Garden St.

Bronx-based developer the Stagg Group is planning a 14-story, 440,000-square-foot, mixed-use building. The property would have 187 residential units, 17,000-square-feet of commercial space and 3,000-square-feet of ground-floor retail space.

Stagg Group representative Mark Fonte told the city planning board recently the building would have a brick and limestone facade, two amenity floors for residents — including a gym, a washer and dryer in every apartment, open green space on the fifth floor and 241 spaces of onsite parking.

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Jay Martino, the Stagg Group's senior vice president of construction, said rates for the rental units have yet to be determined.

In addition to the market rate units, the 26 Garden St. project would also include at least 19 units of affordable housing, as per Westchester guidelines, which state 10 percent of newly constructed units must be made affordable. To qualify for an affordable unit, the applicant's combined income cannot exceed 80 percent of the area's median income. In Westchester, that equates to $74,950 a year for a two-person family and $93,650 for a four-person family.

Fonte said the Stagg Group also plans to build a corporate office inside the building. Construction is expected to begin April 2019.

"We're excited to get this project in the ground and get it developed," Fonte said.

The 26 Garden St. lot is currently empty. The Stagg Group project is aligned with the city's ongoing transit oriented development plans designed to draw young professionals who like to live and play in close proximity while commuting for work.

The planning board indicated the project could receive final approval next month.

11 Garden St.

Across the street from 26 Garden St. is 11 Garden St. Currently a municipal parking lot, 11 Garden is one of the sites the city's master developer, Manhattan-based RXR, has first rights to develop.

RXR intends to build a mixed-use development there in which all 219 units would be affordable.

“It will be indistinguishable from a luxury building,” Mayor Noam Branson said. “It is at a desirable location … with easy access to mass transit.”

Both the RXR and the Stagg Group projects would be a three-minute walk from the city's train station.

Though RXR has not yet submitted a specific design for 11 Garden, Bramson said the idea would be to provide housing for people to work in the area and still have access to transit and amenities close to home.

Luiz Aragon, New Rochelle's planning commissioner, said RXR would probably start construction at 11 Garden St. in fall 2019, with completion about 18 months after that.

The 11 Garden proposal is part of the city's ongoing partnership with RXR, which has the first right to develop several municipal sites throughout New Rochelle's downtown overlay zone.

Unanimously approved by the city council in 2015 and covering 279 acres in the central part of the city, New Rochelle's downtown overlay zone allows for 12 million square feet of new development — including 6,370 new residential units.

Of the total square footage available in the overlay zone, RXR CEO Scott Rechler said 3.5 million to 4 million square feet are public and available for his company to develop or allow another company to propose something to the city.

One of RXR's developments already underway in New Rochelle, the dual, 28-story, mixed-use towers of the Church and Division project south of Main Street, is tied to its proposed Garden Street project in one important way.

As part of New Rochelle's comprehensive plan for the overlay zone, developers have three options for placing affordable housing units: include the units as part of the onsite development; build the units elsewhere in the city’s downtown overlay zone; or developers can pay into the city’s affordable housing fund.

A portion of the rental units at RXR's Garden Street development would be available at the 80 percent of AMI rate, but there would also be units at a series of decreasing percentages of AMI. In exchange, all of the units in RXR's Church and Division towers would be priced at market rate.

When all the downtown plans are complete, the residential unit ratio will shift toward market-rate units, Bramson said. But there will be more affordable units than there were before, he noted, and they’ll be in more desirable locations and in newly-constructed buildings.

“I think we’re getting the balance right,” Bramson said.

District 4 City Councilman Ivar Hyden said the 26 Garden development will meet a goal the city set before all the downtown development began.

“The idea was to create more genuine affordability for workforce people and young people who are starting out,” Hyden said. “You’re making $25,000, $30,000 a year it’s … difficult.”