WHITE PLAINS, NY (April 22, 2022) — New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson recently participated in a fascinating business conference panel with several leading real estate developers operating in New Rochelle. They gathered to discuss the future of the City’s downtown area. More fascinating was the apparent consensus on the panel that Mayor Bramson is some sort of authoritarian strongman who rules over the development process which would otherwise not exist but for him.
Bisnow, which describes itself as the world’s leading B2B platform serving the commercial real estate industry, held a conference on April 12, 2022 at 360 Hamilton Avenue in White Plains, NY. The event was billed as Westchester & Fairfield State of the Market: Rising Communities & The Impact of the Continued Flight to the Suburbs.
The first panel discussion of the conference on April 12 was State Of Westchester: Keys To Building Mixed-Use Communities, a Deep Dive on New Rochelle & White Plains Mixed-Use Approach.
The panel was meant to explain how New Rochelle’s leading developers are creating a roadmap for creating mixed-use communities and which design elements are leading the way in Westchester to create stand alone communities within New Rochelle.
The Panel Moderator was Steve Simonelli, Managing Director of JLL Capital Markets, Americas. The four panelists were Katherine Kelman, Managing Director at LMXD, New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson, Bruce Berg, CEO of The Cappelli Organization and Joseph Graziose, Senior Vice President at RXR.
A video recording of the panel discussion was posted online by the event organizer, Bisnow.
The panel discussion, which lasted about an hour, provided an inside look at how the developers reshaping the New Rochelle skyline think about the City and how they are attempting to create a community within the larger New Rochelle community.
There were plenty of interesting tidbits: the importance of a friendly staff, offering the feel of a boutique hotel, the value of treating dogs well (about one-third of new building residents have dogs), Joe Coffee’s interest in how many Stella residents would be ten feet away each morning from their soon-to-open lobby location, the future of indoor/outdoor swimming pools, the term “Lock and Leave Lifestyle,” the use of Stella mitigation funds for a planned overhaul of Anderson Plaza, how One Clinton Park includes four 3 bedroom units that were leased sight-unseen months before the building opened earlier this month, that RXR is reserving some parcels for future office space to increase the day-time population of New Rochelle, and possibly building some floors of office space into residential buildings.
There was a discussion of some of the developers’ concerns especially the need to overcome problems with retail and infrastructure.
Surprisingly, there was no mention of the Downtown Business Improvement District which has been an active partner with the City for decades in bringing retail businesses and restaurants to the downtown area.
The Mayor was inexplicably described as the person in charge of New Rochelle, the gatekeeper who decides which new developments can proceed, and the architect of the long-term planning which has spurred a building boom in the City.
Simonelli opened the panel discussion by saying of Bramson “None of the projects get going without him.”
In reality the Mayor has no role whatsoever in green-lighting any development projects.
“Obviously you’re in charge of a large city with some of the most skyscrapers going up in the region right now,” said Simonelli.
Not obvious at all really. Under New Rochelle’s Council/Manager form of government the Mayor is not “in charge” of anything. He cannot order a single pothole filled. Under the City Charter, the primary function of a Mayor in New Rochelle is to serve as the chairperson for the legislative body, the City Council, where that person sits as an at-large member with one vote, the same as every other member of Council.
“What else are you looking for in the city?” asked Simonelli, “What else needs to come to kind of complete your plan and what’s your vision of the city over the next 10 years.”
What is happening with downtown development in New Rochelle is not the result of the Mayor’s plan or his vision but rather the professional staff led by three successive development commissioners under City Manager Charles B. Strome, the person actually in charge of a large city with the most skyscrapers going up in the region right now.
Graziose said “kudos to the Mayor and the City Council for putting together a retail task force”.
The idea of the task force came from another government official who asked not to be named. Bramson took the idea to the City Manager and Development Office staff where he attempted to pass the idea off as his own. At the direction of the City Manager, Kathleen Gill, the acting Development Commissioner, Adam Salgado the new Development Commissioner, and Jorge Ventura, Director of Economic Development researched the idea and delivered a presentation to Council on January 18, 2020.
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Council approved the plan for a retail task force, the City Manager appointed its members (Bramson not among them) and the task force began operations. Other than appropriating someone else’s idea and walking down a hallway, the Mayor had little to do with the retail task force.
Kelman, asked why her company developed the Stella, said “the main impetus, of course, sort of, was the planning that had been put in place by the Mayor and the City and with RXR’s involvement over the years.”
The Downtown Overlay Zone and related policies were created by the Development Office under the City Manager. The Mayor did not put any planning in place.
It is not difficult to imagine where successful real estate executives who have operated in the City for years would have gotten the fanciful and wrongheaded idea that all roads in New Rochelle run through Noam Bramson.
The Mayor, asked about the infrastructure of New Rochelle observed that nearly every downtown street has been torn up to put in sanitary lines and drinking water.
He chalked up the difficult challenges in getting around town to “growing pains” but assured the panel the the City’s infrastructure issues had been carefully explored.
Council has discussed in public session how former Development Commissioner Luiz Arágon was not forthcoming on the infrastructure repairs needed to support downtown development that were not carefully explored until the Council discovered the City needed to borrow about $40 million dollars to pay for the repairs.
Setting aside the BramsonMania which infected the panelists, the video is well worth watching for anyone interested in the present and near-future plans for downtown New Rochelle.
New Rochelle needs to build a new school for the influx of immigrants and occupants who have children which will settle in the multiple new buildings being constructed!
You are about 7 years behind the times. The student population has dropped by 1000 students since 2015 and is projected to drop another 1000+ by 2030.
The high was about 11500 in 2015. We are below 10000 now. Projected to be below 9000 by 2030.
These projections INCLUDE the impact of downtown development AND immigration.
I have been on the district facilities committee for more than 6 years and can tell you with certainty how new construction works. Districts seek NYSED approval. If granted districts are reimbursed for the capital costs on a sliding scale. New Rochelle gets about 47% back.
NYSED will NEVER approve reimbursement for a new building in a district that is losing thousands of students because we have too much building capacity already.
The New Rochelle Board of Education would have to pay 100% of the cost ($50-100 mm) to build a new school, one that is not needed.
That cost of an unneeded school would be funded by a bond with no 47% reimbursement which I seriously doubt would be approved in a referendum.
On top of that, NYSED a requires a certain amount of space for a school. There is a formula. For an elementary school with 400 students about 4-5 acres is required. Good luck finding a 5 acre parcel upon which to build a new elementary school!
Short answer: there is no need for a new school and the costs involved even if the Board wanted to build a new school would be astronomical and it will be highly unlikely that a parcel could be found and acquired.
https://talkofthesound.com/2021/04/25/catastrophic-collapse-of-new-rochelle-schools-student-enrollment-underway/
https://talkofthesound.com/2022/01/15/catastrophic-collapse-of-new-rochelle-schools-student-enrollment-accelerates-below-10000-for-first-time-in-a-decade/
The developers forgot to build children’s parks, not even one in downtown area, the one outside the library should be redone for children not for the homeless.
You guys need to wake up this guy is a tyrant a bully and a weasel and cry baby