Yonkers gets $8.9M for redevelopment projects

Ernie Garcia
elgarcia@lohud.com

YONKERS - The city will receive more than $8.9 million in state grants to finance the redevelopment of a former library and a Warburton Avenue historic district.

Empire State Development Corp., the state's lead economic development agency, announced the awards Thursday as part of $153.6 million in Restore New York grants to revitalize urban areas and attract new residents and businesses.

The former downtown Yonkers Public Library branch at 5-7 Main St. received a $5.4 million grant, and the 13-building Philipse Manor Historic District along Warburton Avenue, Manor House Square and Wells Avenue will get $3.5 million.

The Greyston Foundation owns six of the vacant buildings in the historic district and wants to build a midrise residential tower there for about 100 units of affordable middle-class housing. Grey[0xad]ston President Steven Brown said the state grant will help the organization restore the facades of the 19th-century buildings and interiors for ground-floor retail and nine residences.

"Really, it's a shot in the arm to leverage other financing," Brown said.

Brown said Greyston expects to get all final approvals for the project by the end of October.

The money for the former three-story library, originally a department store, will eventually be used by a partnership that has proposed a massive redevelopment for downtown. The library plan calls for Struever Fidelco Cappelli to purchase and renovate the building for retail use or restaurants that are displaced by construction of SFC's River Park Center.

The center is a three-part project of residential and commercial properties on a 13-acre site surrounding the Chicken Island parking lot adjacent to Nepperhan Avenue and School Street.

City Council President Chuck Lesnick said last month that the council could approve deals to move SFC's $1.6 billion project forward in the fall.