Rory Dolan’s eyes Dooley Mac’s in White Plains

Rory Dolan’s Bar and Restaurant has signed an a contract to buy the lease for Dooley Mac’s Publick House in downtown White Plains from its co-owners, Jim Markey, the building’s landlord and a Dooley Mac’s co-owner, confirmed today.

The agreement hinges on Rory Dolan’s securing a state liquor license for the new location at 179 Mamaroneck Ave., something the bar-restaurant applied for a week ago, Markey said.

Markey’s partners in Dooley Mac’s, who had been more active in the business, hooked up with Rory Dolan after marketing their site via a broker. Markey said he got comfortable to sell to Dolan’s group after visiting his popular namesake bar and restaurant in Yonkers, 890 McLean Ave., and a bar-restaurant he owns in the Bronx:

“That kind of helped me decide that these guys were the kind of guys we want to have on the avenue.

“It was no time before these people were there. When word got out, other people were there. I’m surprised at just how desirable Mamaroneck Avenue is,” said Markey, a longtime White Plains property owner.

Namesake owner Rory Dolan was not immediately available this afternoon.
Dooley Mac’s opened in 1999 on the site of the failed Westchester Brewing Co. brew-pub restaurant.

Cappelli starting work on 189 Main, garage apartments

Louis R. Cappelli says he’s a month away from starting work on two mini-projects in downtown White Plains tied to his having to provide 42 affordable housing units as a condition of winning approvals for his Renaissance Square complex now under construction as well as his City Center complex.

With no objections raised by Common Council members at a special meeting last night, Cappelli said he will begin converting 16,000 square feet of commercial space atop the City Center garage to 23 apartments. The Valhalla developer also said he will raze 189 Main St. and build there a small building that could contain either apartments or office space.

What type of apartments get built in both locations – plus a third site he also discussed – hinge upon what happens just east of City Center, at the adjacent Main Street site where Martin Ginsburg and builder A.J. Rotunde’s Ridgemour-Meyer L.L.C. have approvals to build the $200 million Pinnacle condo-affordable-retail complex.

Ginsburg has struggled in recent months assembling $11 million in financing for Pinnacle’s affordable housing component. That matters to Cappelli because the affordable component is set to house the 42 affordable units he owes the city, plus nine owed by Ginsburg.

Pinnacle has also been set back by the discovery of the dry-cleaning solvent perc on the property, leading to talks between Ginsburg and the state Department of Environmental Conservation. The project’s approvals expire in April.

Last night Cappelli expressed no confidence Ginsburg will build Pinnacle – even though Ginsburg till now has maintained he can still construct the project, most recently in a report you can read in Monday’s new edition of the Business Journal.

“My personal opinion is that Pinnacle is not going to happen,” Cappelli said.

Cappelli’s suspicion was reinforced at the meeting, when Mayor Joseph M. Delfino said Westchester officials would not approve the $2 million grant Ginsburg sought from the county for Pinnacle.

But in an interview this morning, Deputy County Executive Larry Schwartz insisted Westchester was still willing to subsidize Pinnacle but never got updated information from the developers, including updated financial data and projections.

Cappelli told the council his garage-top apartments would be market-rate rentals if Pinnacle gets built as planned. He said he wanted to start work on them quickly because he’s required to produce 22 affordable units by May 2008.

If Pinnacle doesn’t happen, Cappelli added, he would lease those apartments at below-market rents.

That would still leave 19 affordable units Cappelli has to build. He said he has two options:

Include all or part of the 19 within 240 Main St., a low-rise building of up to .. units Cappelli would construct at the corner of Main Street and City Center Place (formerly part of E.J. Conroy Drive). Cappelli won approvals for 240 Main in 2005 but held off on construction after Ginsburg agreed to build 51 affordable units for both developers within Pinnacle.

Scatter the affordable units between 240 Main and 189 Main St., an even smaller building where he said he envisions between 12 to 15 units.

Cappelli said 189 could also emerge as a small-office building if tenant interest remains strong.

White Plains notes: HANAC/Bluestone update, Post/Lex TIF?

HANAC/Bluestone: Paul Wood, executive officer to Mayor Joseph M. Delfino, explained why White Plains has questioned the plan for an intergenerational center within the $55 million older-adult apartment building planned at 143 Grand St. by nonprofit group HANAC Inc., The Bluestone Organization, both of New York City, and Enterprise Social Investment Corp. of Columbia, Md.

Wood said the center – which would provide day care for children as well as older-adult residents, with the goal of promoting intergenerational relations – makes no sense given its location a block south of the county-run overnight homeless shelter in place under the county Social Services Building at 85 Court St.

“They’re going to have a day care center that close to a homeless shelter? Who’s going to use it?” Wood asked.

County Board of Legislators Chairman William J. Ryan dismisses the city’s argument by saying the shelter will move by the time ground is broken for the older-adult building. He also said the day care center would not be affected by the shelter because the shelter only operates at night.

“Their rationale is ridiculous,” Ryan said.

Westchester officials promised nearly three weeks ago that the shelter would leave soon, when announcing a replacement facility next to the county police headquarters in Hawthorne. But officials were forced to drop that plan just two days later, when it emerged that the shelter violated an agreement between Greenburgh and the county not to locate a second residence for homeless people within 2 miles of the WestHELP transitional housing campus for homeless families with young children.

Ryan disclosed the intergenerational shelter dispute in Monday’s new edition of the Business Journal – check the Fly on the Wall page. That article mentioned Delfino’s 2003 proposal to have a Ryan re-election opponent build senior housing on site.
“There would have been beautiful, affordable housing for seniors the past three years if the mayor had been allowed to develop the site,” Wood said.

Post/Lexington redevelopment: Wood said White Plans was on track to release a land-use guideline for the Post Road and South Lexington Avenue corridors this summer. That plan will be crafted once officials finish soliciting comment from property owners and residents – a process begun earlier this month at a public hearing.

The guidelines will be dubbed “Phase 4” of the city’s redevelopment effort. (Phase 1 was the original Urban Renewal redevelopment of the 1960s-1980s, 2 was the large-lot guideline that brought the tall towers of City Center and Renaissance Square downtown, 3 called for quality of life improvements such as a downtown trolley.)

TIF possible: Wood said city officials would review whether to encourage developers to pursue tax-increment financing to fund public works improvements in the Post/Lex corridor. Yonkers officials are considering approving the state’s first-ever TIF in the downtown and waterfront areas targeted for redevelopment by SFC Yonkers L.L.C., whose partners include Louis R. Cappelli.

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