White Plains CitizeNetReporter - JPI to Request Another 90 Days to Finance The Jefferson's Added Costs

WPCNR EVENING CITY STAR REPORTER. From City Hall Media Relations Office. January 7, 2003: The Mayor's office announced via telephone news conference this evening that JPI, developers of The Jefferson at 300 Mamaroneck Avenue, where construction has been stalled for approximately 10 months, will seek another 45 to 90 days extension of their site plan from the Common Council.

SHALLOW POCKETS. 10 MONTHS OF WAITING: The troubled JPI development, The Jefferson at White Plains, as it appeared in March 2002, when excavation stopped due to construction contractor dispute over the cost of the contract. Ground was broken in October, 2001, approximately the same time as the City Center. Now the project is a distant fourth in the White Plains apartment race between Clayton Park, Bank Street Commons, and the City Center "towers." It appears much the same today.
Photo by WPCNR News

George Gretsas, the Mayor's Executive Officer, reported that representatives of JPI advised the Mayor Friday that the firm has been unable to finance the increased construction costs agreed to by JPI with their contractor. Having settled the dispute over construction costs, the firm now finds itself apparently unable to get its present investors to increase their commitment to the project. No financial details were disclosed.

Gretsas said JPI will meet with the Common Council on January 21, a Tuesday, in a work session beginning at 6 PM to "make their case" Gretsas said, for a 45 to 90 extension to their site plan.

Gretsas said the council will consider the request, but is expected to ask JPI for what Gretsas described as "a landscape plan" alternative, should JPI abandon the project. "The last thing we need is another hole in the ground," Gretsas said.

Asked if the council might consider a performance bond of future contractors as a contingency of any site plan approval, Gretsas, said that was premature, having just eliminated the restriction on flexible plumbing joints, long a cost stumbling block to development in White Plains, "the last thing we need is to make it more difficult to develop in White Plains," Gretsas said.

Gretsas described a landscape plan as a procedure the developer would have to execute as a contingency of any extension of the site plan.


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