Bloomberg News reports that new hotel going up in New Rochelle will will be larger than any other built in Westchester County in two decades, at 24 stories, according to the developer.
New Rochelle’s planning officials last week approved developer Ward Capital Management LLC’s 225-room project in downtown New Rochelle that will have a glass tower connected to a 114-year-old brick building, which will serve as the hotel lobby. The property will be operated as a TRYP by Wyndham, a brand that the hotel company says “channels the energy of the city to help you explore like a local.”
It will be located directly off I-95 at 115 Cedar Street.
The project is part of a broader effort to make the city more appealing to young people who might otherwise choose to live in hipper locations like Brooklyn’s Williamsburg. The city retained RXR Realty as lead developer for its master plan, which rezoned 279 acres (113 hectares) downtown and allowed for 12 million square feet (1.1 million square meters) of new construction, including 6,300 residential units, about 2.4 million square feet of offices and 1 million square feet of retail.
The developer says the luxury hotel will offer guests an “urban resort” experience that includes a restaurant and bar, spa, rooftop pool and grill, conference space and valet parking for 433 cars.
Fact is the Sound Shore is growing itself into something very different from what people can here to find: it is becoming urbanized. Not just New Rochelle, but Larchmont and Mamaroneck continue to allow and promote urbanizing development of apartment buildings and parking areas together with larger single family homes that eliminate the little green space left, crowd the schools, streets and recreation areas. This has and will continue to degrade the quality of life here. Where we are now, growth is a negative and will soon lead to people leaving to seek the relative tranquility and standard of life that they moved here for to begin with.
For the last 10 years there have been literally hundreds of posts and meetings on the subject of redevelopment of the downtown of New Rochelle. The time to weigh in has come and gone.Who voted for this? Your elected representatives. It amazes me how many people are just now waking up and wondering how this all came to be. Where have you been? In any case the downtown of New Ro was in desperate need of redevelopment. No where to go but up. And btw, the city government is not responsible for private enterprise, i.e. Vegan Restaurants. Let’s all look forward. There is no going back.
Building a big eyesore is not going to make New Rochelle more attractive..to anybody. The way to make the place more attractive to newbie newcomers who can’t afford Brooklyn.. How about a skate park? Some affordable housing in the empty spaces that already exist.. Renovation of existing run down places. tax incentives to landlords to keep rents low..Vegan restaurants.. Community activities.. Park and recreation nights.. Boating and emergency first aid classes..a recreation center.. a senior center.. emergency health clinics.. small businesses..
Also.. the way to stop this heinous invasion is to question it’s effects on the environment. Bring in the EPA.. questions about density.. and rezoning.. I would look into the zoning to see who really changed that.. because sometimes strange things get done with the stoke of a pen..
Why ? Seriously… why ? Build shopping stores and restaurants. A building really? A 1 bedroom apt goes for $2400+? Pointless really pointless
As a 35 year Larchmont resident who just moved to downtown New Rochelle, I have been reading the comments to this post with interest. So I decided to do some research. I encourage all of you to go the New Rochelle web site explaining this development. https://www.newrochelleny.com/1015/TOD-Downtown-Cluster. This development is all part of plan that had much community input and was approved by the city in 2015. Do I know if it is going to work? No. But it is clearly not some fly by the night idea.
Thus is ridiculous!!! New Rochelle would never recover from such a disastrous scheme. When you take care of the streets, provide accessible and affordable transit, and RESPONSIBLY bolster the local economy, people will come. The approaches to date seem overly bloated and preposterous to me. All I can say is Keep It Simple, Stupid, or I mean, Sweety!
The questions to ask are; 1. How will the already overcrowded schools, accommodate an influx of students? 2. How does this affect the fire & police departments?, 3. How will this effect our water supply? 4. Will this effect the taxes of current homeowners? 5. How do you attract anyone to a city that has no meaningful shopping? 6. Parking? 7. Traffic? 8. How well thought out was this? 9. Who voted for this?
We looked at three higher end high rise rentals back in 2016 in downtown NR, close access to the station. Each had Section 8 or some other gov’t assistance residence in them. They did, but not officially. In “luxury” buildings. That leads to lots of concerns for older people or young families like mine; constant loitering, steady state of hallway marijuana clouds and pit mix canines. All deal breakers. And that is all just inside the building, once outside that walk to the train at night would not safe be for a woman.
New Ro has a lot of heavy lifting to do before anyone’s parents or grandchildren should consider moving (to the downtown area) there.
All this development is fine, but what’s completely lacking in this ambitious urban plan for New Ro is any significant green space for residents of the rental towers and guests of the hotel. We were looking seriously at some of the new apt bldgs in our effort to downsize, but we saw nowhere to walk our dog or go for a nice evening walk in the downtown core. That’s a problem if you want to attract city dwellers; why come up here, if there’s nowhere pleasant outside the living space?!
maybe this high rise will block out the disaster of a billboard currently in view from larchmont for some of us