Yonkers puts on historic face
Greyston to alter plans
By MARY SUE IAROCCI

Architects for the Greyston Foundation are drafting plans to keep the Philipse Manor neighborhood in Yonkers looking much as it does now, though substantially altered behind preserved facades.

Last month’s decision by the Yonkers City Council to landmark a block of 13 properties in the Philipse Manor Historic District marked the first commercial landmark district in the city. The block takes its name from Philipse Manor Hall, the colonial stone mansion that dominates the western side of Warburton Avenue at the top of Larkin Plaza. This decision has altered plans for a $36 million work force housing development project proposed by local nonprofit Greyston Foundation, which owns five properties at the Wells Street end of the proposed district.

“We were not in favor of it,” said Steven Brown, president and CEO of the Greyston Foundation said of the decision to have the property landmarked. “It’s going to hamper our ability to build.” Greyston originally proposed to erect a 12-story building with 10,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space and a four-story parking garage, with upper floors including 108 condos to be sold to Yonkers residents who met Westchester County’s affordable-housing income requirements. . Now, as part of the deal, Greyston agreed to try to preserve the facades. “We’re back to where we started, with a new design now incorporating the facades,” Brown said. “We did say we would restore the facades completely. The question is, how are they integrated with the rest of the building? These are difficult issue to resolve architecturally.”

Brown said ultimately Greyston will have to go back to the Landmarks Preservation Board for full approval.

“We’re still not sure what it’s going to cost,” Brown said. “We are working on that. It’s not only the cost of preservation, but also the cost of maintaining those structures before, during and after construction.”

Stuart Lachs, the architect on the project from the Greenwich, Conn.-based Perkins Eastman, said the original design envisioned demolition of the existing buildings.

“Now were going to preserve and restore the existing facades and combine the ground levels of the existing buildings into a single retail space, and the new building above will be set back away from the facades starting on the second floor,” Lachs said.

Lachs said a new design was developed and plans have been filed with the city.

On June 26, they have their first meeting back before the zoning board of appeals.

“We have tried to maintain the original general configuration with regard to number of units and amount of retail and parking,” Lachs said.

Lachs said the overall height of the building has been lowered by four stories in response to comments made last summer to the Zoning Board of Appeals, before the issue of landmarking even came up.