WPCNR THE DEVELOPER NEWS. News & Comment. By John F. Bailey August 14, 2008: Reporter Keith Eddings description of the impasse on the Cappelli Enterprises affordable housing obligation before the developer can open the Ritz second tower: whether to collect $1.2 Million from Cappelli Enterprises and let that firm off the hook for 17 units of affordable housing for the Trump Tower, or extend the developer more time to build them is interesting.

Here you have Mr. Eddings quoting Paul Wood, the Mayor’s Executive Officer to wit, “The question is, what do you get for $1.2 million? Can you build 17 units for that?”

White Plains B.C. --1950s. B.C. (Before Cappelli) Dead in 2001, shunned by big time developers and property owners. (WPCNR Collection)

White Plains 2008 A.C. (After Cappelli)  4 towers, 1 hotel, 1 four level shopping center, built in 7 years

(WPCNR Photo)

And later in the same report, Louis Cappelli is quoted as saying, “How can you build affordable housing for $450,000 a unit?” in his lament that the city designated the 240 Main Street building as a high rise increased his cost and made the project unaffordable.

The interesting thing is, last Friday, the Common Council agreed to a deal that pays LCOR $50.5 Million in real taxpayer dollars (abated taxes) (over 24 years) to build 107 affordable units, which works out to $472,000 a unit. So the city itself is paying $472,000 a unit for one affordable housing unit at least in the LCOR deal. This is being reported as only about a $27 Million tax abatement, but by the city’s own figures sheet they list it as a $50.5 Million tax abatement which are the real tax dollars.

Now the City Hall WPCNR Monitoring Service noted this in the first edition of the article, and Paul Wood diplomatically called and said that $27 Million is the real value of today's dollars of the abatement, it is costing LCOR, he says $221,000 a unit to build in today's dollars. Mr. Wood says  the city is giving LCOR a "subsidy" to build the affordable units, paying them back in cheaper dollars, $50.5 Million of them. He says the net value of those $50.5 Million is $27 Million. Nevertheless, no matter what the inflation-eroded value of the $50 million, 500th dollar you are still giving $50.5 Million dollars away. At the time that  the $50 million, five-hundredth dollar is deducted from LCOR's tax in 2032, that is a whole real dollar in 2032.

Now, of course there is a way out of this. As has been  reported on my weekly television show, White Plains Week, for at least three years now, the 240 Main Street spot is too valuable a piece of real estate to sully with affordable housing. But if the building were made higher, providing more units I believe any developer would be happy to build there.

Perhaps if the Council allowed Cappelli Enterprises to increase the height of the building say to 65 stories, enabling the firm to build a building that could pay for itself and be a true high rise which could be marketed for satisfying profit, maybe, maybe Cappelli Enterprises might consider building it and even adding to the affordable housing inventory beyond the 17 units.

I think a 70-story building marking a renewed interest of Cappelli Enterprises in White Plains would be a grand solution to a situation that the Common Council created themselves anyway. Cappelli Enterprises was ready to build the units. They would not let him. They wanted Ginsburg Development to build them.

(Such is the credibility of WPCNR, and the thousands that believe and rely on WPCNR for the news that is true, I regret the concern, alarm and panic expressed by a caller, that I was advocating a 70-story building on the 240 Main site. I was exaggerating to make a point, satirizing if you will. )

The council said no, they felt the city should be open to other developers and relied on another developer to build Cappelli Enterprise affordable commitment. It did not work out. Now, Cappelli Enterprises is being victimized by the Council’s own naivete.

WPCNR placed a call to Cappelli Enterprise public relations firm, Thompson & Bender, to see if an overture to build a higher, tonier 240 Main Street 50 stories, 65 stories -- the sky’s the limit-- was perhaps on their leader’s mind, and whether that opportunity might solve the hand-wringing over the affordable housing.

Makes sense to me,

However, why should the council turn down $1.2 Million from Cappelli Enterprises? Take the money and run. At least, we know Cappelli Enterprises is good for it, and Cappelli Enterprises has no trouble getting a bankroll, unlike some developers recently.

At least we know that when Cappelli Enterprises speaks, people,  big time hoteliers, and markets listen, and the voice of Cappelli moves markets, even the world's leading luxury hotel listened to him.

Mr. Cappelli has given us City Center, the world’s premier hotel, Ritz-Carlton, and has actually paid us around $8 Million a year in tax payments for the last 8 years  not to mention the the ancillary sales tax effects. 

I cannot see consistency from the Common Council in their positions.

Take the money and run, Council. Or kiss and make up with Cappelli Enterprises and forget this high rise designation nonsense. No way an 8-story building is a high rise. Come on.

But 70-stories -- that’s a high rise.

That would make sense to an Ultra-Developer, but I am not advocating 70 stories, take it easy out there, people.

A profitable one at that that will be poised for the boom and bring back the only developer who has ever really helped the city to survive when all else are hemorraging red ink  -- fast.

Mr. Eddings also in a rare coup -- a speak-to with Donald Trump -- reports Mr. Trump is considering partnering with Mr. Cappelli elsewhere in the county. How about "Twin Trumps" in White Plains? With the right height anything's possible, right? With the economies of other cities in the county tanking, where would you build if you were an Ultra-Developer?

It is not Cappelli Enterprises fault that the city mismanages its assets, buys open space for millions, never fights a certiorari bandit, and overspends on its school system.

Yet last week, the Common Council gave to LCOR exclusive development rights to city property on Bank Street on a project that has not even been designed yet -- while a year ago they denied the same sphere of favored developer status to Cappeli Enterprises on the Station Square project -- saying they wanted other developers to have a chance.

Where is the consistency? Station Square was great. The LCOR project is an aesthetic mystery at this time -- a bad idea.

Why can't the Council negotiate a better 240 Main Street project and kiss and make up with the developer who created the rennaisance?

Are we going to keep the Super Developer developing for White Plains, or really say "good bye?"

You're going to need him the next four years.