MacQuestion Development CEO Rella Fogliano, 32/36/38 Main Street in Yonkers (Google Maps, Getty)
An affordable housing complex is being planned in Yonkers, although development of the project could still face several obstacles.
MacQuesten Development is proposing a 10-story building with 76 units and ground-floor retail on a five-lot portfolio that includes 32, 36 and 38 Main Street, as well as 1 and 3 Riverdale Avenue. All 76 units in the building would be priced as affordable housing, an attorney for MacQuesten told the Westchester & Fairfield County Business Journals.
The Mount Vernon-based developer aims to have an application ready for the Yonkers Planning Board by its Oct. 13 meeting, according to the publication.
The rub, however, is that MacQuesten doesn’t actually own all of the property needed for construction. The firm is in contract to buy two of the lots, but the other three are owned by the Yonkers Community Development Agency, which owns about 90 properties across the city.
To build on the agency’s lots, which lie within a historic district, MacQuesten would need to be designated as a qualified sponsor. The building would obstruct a work by muralist Richard Haas on the exterior of 5 Riverdale Avenue. The attorney for MacQuesten told the publication that the firm has offered to pay to relocate the mural to another site in the city.
When completed, the building’s nine residential floors would include 12 studio apartments, 36 one-bedroom apartments, 23 two-bedroom apartments and five three-bedroom apartments. The ground floor would comprise about 4,000 square feet of retail space.
MacQuesten plans on proposing 31 below-ground parking spaces, which would fall below code requirements; the company would propose a payment-in-lieu for the other spaces needed.
Amenities in the building would include a laundry room, a lounge, a meeting room and an outdoor terrace on the roof. A green roof design would be designed by the development firm, which emphasizes green and sustainable construction.
[WestFair] — Holden Walter-Warner
