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The Common Council, which last week got a peek at preliminary plans for the proposed project, Monday sent it on to various departments and commissions for review, according to Karen Pasquale, spokesperson for Mayor Tom Roach.
Plans call for the boxy 12-story building at the corner of Hamilton Avenue and North Broadway to be turned into 245 studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom rental units.
It would also include a café and neighborhood market.
The 1960s-era building at 440 Hamilton Ave. was sold by AT&T for $20.5 million to American Equity Partners I LLC and American Equity Partners II LLC in November, according to westfaironline.com.
The offices of Entergy, the integrated energy company that operates the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan, are located in the top two floors; the building is otherwise unoccupied, Pasquale said.
Philip Fruchter, the proposed project’s architect, Entergy’s lease is “sun setting” and they will be leaving the building.
The building is in a prominent downtown location, near White Plains’s transportation hub and business district where city leaders have been hoping to attract young professionals.
The mayor, Pasquale said Tuesday, thinks the project would be “a great adaptive re-use of the property.”
Fruchter, principal at the White Plains-based Papp Architects, told the city that “maisonette apartments” are part of the plan.
The two-story apartments would have individual doors and stoops and be located on the Hamilton Avenue side.
Fruchter said the building’s entire exterior will be removed and replaced with glass. On the North Broadway side, there will be blue, reflecting glass “ribbons” cascading in and out, the architect added.
Glass helps “de-materialize” the appearance of large buildings because it reflects the sky, he explained.
Because it was an old office building, the floor plates are “very deep,” Fruchter said. This means that builders can peel back the structure’s “skin” and move inward to make terraces.
Also part of the plan is a five-unit penthouse, which would make the building 13 stories tall. There would be private terraces with greenery for the penthouse folks and a common outdoor area on the roof for other tenants.
Among the other amenities, Fruchter said, are an outdoor pool, gym, theater, dog-walking area, bocce court and charging stations for electric vehicles.
Fruchter said planning, building, public safety, traffic and other appropriate boards and commissions are expected to get back to the Common Council with their findings in March.
“The proposal has the potential to bring new life to this important downtown spot,” Pasquale said.
To read the westfaironline.com story, click here.
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