Last permitted tenant in place at Reader’s Digest property

May 29, 2009
by Christine Yeres

Last week Summit Greenfield Partners, owner of the Reader’s Digest property, signed a long-term lease with Northern Westchester Hospital for 35,000 square feet of office space on the Reader’s Digest campus for pediatric specialties, rehabilitation and wound care facilities and a Balance Center. According to a press release by Summit Greenfield’s public relations firm, Thompson & Bender, the developer will refashion the space on the first floor of Building 500 for the hospital offices. 

Summit Greenfield already allows Northern Westchester Hospital, with approval of the town of New Castle, to make use of 140 parking spaces on the Digest property, from which hospital personnel are bused by mini-vans to and from the hospital, two miles north of Reader’s Digest. This arrangement became necessary for the hospital because of the extensive renovations planned to its hospital emergency department.

The hospital is the fourth and last of the tenants permitted under current zoning regulations governing the Reader’s Digest property. The three other tenants are Reader’s Digest, which leases 296,000 square feet; Fiber Media, which leases 35,000 square feet; and Mt. Kisco Medical Group, which leases 20,000 square feet.  Jointly, tenants lease 75,000 square feet of common space, making 461,000 square feet leased out of a total of 700,000 square feet open, or about 66% of the available space. 

Summit Greenfield has applied to the Zoning Board of Appeals of New Castle for a zoning variance that would allow more commercial tenants. The zoning board will not hear Summit Greenfield’s case for a variance from the current zoning until the town board, lead agency in New York State’s required environmental review process, finishes its review of Summit Greenfield’s application for a zoning change to allow a multi-family planned development of 278 condominiums on the property. 

Last week New Castle’s town board declared Summit Greenfield’s draft environmental impact statement, or DEIS, regarding its proposed development complete for purposes of review.  Public comment on the DEIS and on Summit Greenfield’s proposal for rezoning begins on Tuesday, June 23, 7:00 p.m. at town hall. The town board has mounted the DEIS and related documents on a dedicated website:

http://chappaquacrossingreview.mynewcastle.org/

and has set up an email address to receive comments from the community at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

For a complete listing of NewCastleNOW.org’s previous articles and letters to the editor on Reader’s Digest, click here.
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