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YOUR only SOURCE FOR regional BUSINESS NEWS | westfaironline.com
November 26, 2012 | VOL. 48, No. 48
Cat ching up afte r San dy, and girding for the next
W A river ran through it Page 2
Plant one here Yonkers roots again for Boyce Thompson site BY JOHN GOLDEN jgolden@westfairinc.com
T
he city of Yonkers has parted ways with one developer and seeks another as first-year Mayor Mike Spano continues to push for redevelopment of long-vacant and deteriorating relics of the city’s industrial past. The city this month issued a request for proposals (RFP) from developers interested in acquiring the former
Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research property at 1086 N. Broadway to redevelop for commercial uses. The 6-acre property, which adjoins the South Westchester Executive Park, comes with a 60,000-square-foot, twostory brick Georgian Revival building built in 1930 by Yonkers resident William Boyce Thompson and several glass-shattered greenhouses. Plant one, page 6
V H
BY JOHN GOLDEN jgolden@westfairinc.com
estchester County businesses left in the dark for days or weeks by Hurricane Sandy will be “catching up” this holiday season on lost work hours and billings, a business leader in the county predicted. And three governor-appointed commissions will spend the rest of the year examining how New York can improve its infrastructure and emergency preparedness before another major storm wreaks disaster in the state. At Bridge Street Properties, a 205,000-square-foot commercial and retail development in the former Lord & Burnham factory complex on the Hudson River in Irvington, “I think that we are one of the only businesses open right now,” said Connie Leonardis, office manager at Sloane Stecker Physical Therapy P.C. More than three weeks after the surging river stormed over seawalls and left four feet of water in ground-floor offices, retail stores and restaurants in the red brick complex, tenants large and small are still replacing or repairing ruined furnishings, equipment and inventory. Bridge Street companies employ about 750 workers, according to an Irvington village trustee. A prominent tenant, the 14-employee Eileen Fisher Lab Store at 1 Bridge St. “will not open for at least another month,” said Kerri Devaney, spokeswoman for the women’s fashion clothing company. She said a roughly four-foot by four-foot pane of glass on the Irvington storefront “was actually pushed out” in the flood. “It did not break. It floated through the store and landed on a couch.” The pane has been reinstalled in its proper setting. Devaney said ground-floor operations at 2 Bridge St., where Eileen Fisher has manufacturing and back office operations, will reopen early next year. Some of the building’s 165 employees are working in mezzanine space and a converted Catching up, page 6
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