Real Estate
MTA to buy White Plains building for $15.5 million
By BOB ROZYCKI


 

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is paying $15.5 million for a building on North Broadway in White Plains to consolidate operations. It also plans to open an attached parking garage to Metro-North Railroad commuters using the overcrowded North White Plains station.

The MTA expects to close on the building at 525 N. Broadway by Friday, said Jeremy Soffin, an MTA spokesman. The two-story, 77,000-square-foot brick building is on the corner of North Broadway and Bond Street.

As for the current tenants, who include law and accounting offices, their fate has not yet been determined, Soffin said.

With a number of leases expiring this year, coupled with the incentive to reduce rental costs, the MTA began searching in 2006 for leased space to consolidate a number of offices that are currently spread from the Graybar Building at Grand Central Terminal to a trailer on the Croton-Harmon rail yards, Soffin said. “We had the opportunity to purchase here,” he said.

The building is in a unique location for MTA employees and Metro-North commuters; it’s just two blocks from the North White Plains station. It will also provide extra parking spaces for an already overcrowded lot.

The building’s three-floor deck garage is expected to be made available to rail commuters, Soffin said, affording 112 extra spaces.

The MTA and the Westchester County Department of Transportation began studying adding more parking back in 2005. Metro-North and Westchester County own parking facilities on the western side of the station. Parking on the east side is owned by both Metro-North and the White Plains Parking Authority. Parking capacity is currently pegged at 1,200 spaces, making it 300 spaces in the red.

According to an environmental impact statement (EIS), the parking deficiency is expected to grow to 1,600 spaces in the next seven years and to 3,300 spaces in 2025.

The only access to the westside parking lots – which provide about 80 percent of all station parking – is Fisher Lane.

The final scoping information document of the EIS had recommended:

• Construction of a multi-level parking structure at the station.

• Improved access to and from the proposed expanded parking facilities from the east and west sides of the railroad tracks.

• Intermodal connections will need jitney services, feeder buses supported by park-and-ride lots, carpool and vanpool arrangements.

• Restoring a portion of the Bronx River Parkway Reservation that is used for customer parking back to parkland.

• Improvements to surface parking to reduce the risk of flooding from the Bronx River.

 

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