by Kathy Savolt -
At the September 23, 2024 Work Session of the Board of Trustees (BOT), there were two items on the agenda that were similar but in contradiction to one another. The first, added by Mayor Sharon Torres, was to discuss the development of a Request for Proposals (RFP) for a public-private partnership to develop Village owned property specifically, the old Village Hall site, the Hunter Tier parking lot, and the empty Hook & Ladder firehouse on Mamaroneck Avenue.
The second, added by Trustee Lou Young, was for a phase two project (Hunter Tier being phase one) at the old Village Hall site. This would be pursued as the Village moved forward with Westhab for the development of affordable housing on the Hunter Tier parcel.
Torres has proposed pursuing a larger and more comprehensive development that would include housing and also address the Village’s needs for parking and office space. This idea began to take root after the presentation by Pelham’s mayor, Chance Mullen, regarding the project they are successfully bringing to fruition. See article HERE. She reiterated her position that pursuing a partnership with a private developer and combining Village needs and housing is a better solution to any project just on the Hunter Tier lot.
She mentioned that at the last BOT meeting, when the Board voted 3-2 to select Westhab as the “preferred developer” for the Hunter Tier lot, she raised this issue, and a majority of the Trustees indicated they would like to see an RFP. Torres wanted a board action to direct the staff to research other municipalities’ RFPs and existing data to draft an RFP for review.
Young said he would support a larger project but only as phase two allowing the Hunter Tier project with Westhab to move forward. He expressed his concern that “anything too large is not going to fly.”
Torres responded that housing is imperative to the larger project in order to have an element that will give a private entity a profit, allowing them to participate in the development of the public portions of the project. Trustee Nora Lucas pointed out that for the purposes of the NY State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA), Young’s suggestion of two phases would be considered a single project. Any SEQRA review must be done on the entire project as breaking it up is (called segmentation) and not permitted. Village Attorney Robert Spolzino confirmed that if the additional work was “reasonably anticipated,” they could not be separated.
It's clear that an expanded Village Hall has been “reasonably anticipated.” There is a project currently underway (See article HERE).
In June 2022, former Village Manager, Jerry Barberio, began working with a local architectural firm, EnviroSpace, for a Conceptual Plan for a New Village Hall at 169 Mt Pleasant Avenue. According to Greg DeAngelis, AIA, principal of EnviroSpace, the firm was asked to conduct a small conceptual study. When that was completed, the Village contracted with them to continue work through the schematic design phase of the project, an extensive phase that involved many professionals including engineers and a parking consultant. That work was completed at the end of last year and EnviroSpace has been paid in full. Trustee Lucas said at the 9/23 meeting that the Village has already paid out “almost $200,000” on a project at the Village Hall site.
DeAngelis expected the project to continue and said they had been gearing up for the next phase: detailed design. He thought the lack of senior staff and emphasis on the Hunter Tier project had delayed the project.
The EnviroSpace project did include the parking analysis done in November 2022 but just recently discovered. We now know that it concluded that the Village needs more parking for just Village purposes. See HERE.
The current effort to consolidate Village offices into a single facility is not the first one. In May 2019, the Village issued an RFP for the conceptual design for the consolidation of Village facilities currently located at old Village Hall, The Regatta and records storage at 650 Halstead Avenue. After a review of the submissions, the Village chose Geddis Architect of Connecticut for a fee of $27,500. They presented their work to the BOT on 11/26/2019 and it seems nothing happened afterward until Barberio started the process from the beginning again in 2022.
From 2019, when former Village Manager Jerry Barberio was hired, to date, the Village has spent over $200,000 on what is now being called the Village Civic Center.
The interim Village Manager, Chuck Strome, ended the discussion with the comment “if I’m the developer (of the Hunter Tier project), I’m going to wait to do SEQRA until we know what’s going on across the street.”
The BOT did not direct the staff to proceed. The question of why this issue wasn’t flagged before things got to this point still remains.
