Open space on roofs of apartment buildings and municipal garages revisited.

Open space on roofs of apartment buildings and municipal garages. Saturday, January 30, 2016 by Kenneth Matinale

With just a little imagination we can substantially expand the amount of open space in urban downtown White Plains...

The City of White Plains should require all new residential apartment buildings to have green and recreational roofs. Any existing regulations that might inhibit such addition of this to existing buildings should be reviewed and reconsidered.

If there are no inhibiting regulations, the City should start a long term program to encourage decision makers for existing residential apartment buildings to make the necessary changes where possible and use all that open space for their own residents...

The Trump residential apartment condominium at the City Center has on its roof space atop the public parking garage: tennis and basketball courts and what appears to be a small golf hole. Use Google Earth to check for yourself...

Renderings of the new residential apartment project at 60 South Broadway, the old Westchester Pavilion, suggest that the roof will contain multiple recreational items, including swimming pools...

The City has many municipal parking garages scattered around town to serve the many multiple lane roads that slash through downtown. Obviously each garage has an open top level, which could be made into a green roof at the very least or more imaginatively into a public open space, some with recreational elements.

Yes, the City would lose parking spaces but it cannot sustain continual increase in cars driven and parked. There can never be enough roads and never enough parking. People need to move around in different ways. And, no, the Bee Line is not the answer. That county bus system is a ridiculous ($115 million a year) option for people moving around White Plains. The City needs to step up its efforts on this.
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New Vision For Whole City Block In County Seat

It would add restaurants and retail to a currently people-unfriendly area close to the White Plains train station.

By Lanning Taliaferro, Patch Staff | Nov 27, 2018 10:13 am ET | Updated Nov 27, 2018 3:04 pm ET patch.com

Ginsburg Development Companies presented its idea for City Square Monday to the White Plains Common Council...

But one amazing highlight wouldn't be open to the public: an almost one-acre landscaped roof deck on top of the property's parking garage to be called City Park, accessible to people who work or live in the complex...

The transformation of Westchester Financial Center into City Square would be the first development project under the area's new Transit District Development Zone, designed to make the neighborhood near the train station more pedestrian friendly with new retail and restaurant offerings...

An amenity that the entire complex would be able to enjoy is "City Square Park," an almost one-acre landscaped roof deck that would sit on top of the property's 1,033-space parking garage and will be accessible from all buildings.

This Central Park would feature a dramatic fountain with plentiful seating, a putting green, a BBQ Pavilion and a 2,000-step, 4-level walking path with landscaping and sculpture features.

"City Square Park is a unique feature that will become a favored spot for all of those who live and/or work at this special place," concluded Ginsburg.
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Hudson Link: more empty huge buses downtown for no good reason.

Hudson Link monster size buses are the latest. I have yet to see any passengers. Any data on this?

And if/when there are passengers, what percent will do more than get on the train to Manhattan? Maybe get on a private corporate bus that takes short cuts through residential streets to corporate parks along 287?

What are Common Council members thinking: Hey, White Plains must be hot stuff if all these buses come here! Yeah, like letting a stranger use your bathroom. How does that benefit you? That's probably true for most of the cars cutting through downtown during afternoon rush hours starting about 4:00 PM. Are people stopping to spend money in WP? Or just whizzing through, literally, not figuratively.

Then there's this:

Hudson Link: Reality far from the expansive original vision
by Matt Coyne, Rockland/Westchester Journal News Published 6:00 a.m. ET Oct. 22, 2018 | Updated 8:00 a.m. ET Oct. 29, 2018

Read for yourself, if can get past the annoyingly amateurish lohud ad blocker blocker.

Hole in the ground tradition of development.

Once there was a train station building on Bank Street where now stand twin residential towers of about 22 stories.

The train station was demolished in the 1970s and remained an embarrassing hole in the ground for parts of three decades. Small trees began to grow.

Let's combine that with the fact that the Continuum rental building just south took ten years to get built.

There is a mega hole in ground bordered by Post Road, South Broadway and Maple Avenue. In other words, where everyone can see it. Destruction has not been followed by construction. Hold that thought.

The mini mall that contains the DMV is another potential hole in the ground. The Asian market there has closed because of planning for the Hamilton Square mostly residential development. So has Bob Hyland's place and others.

Building in White Plains seems excruciating. City decision makers have got to look themselves in the eye and ask themselves why.