NewRo Studios (ELD Properties and IMC Architecture) is a 73-unit project that will offer local artists below market rate live-work spaces, a rooftop performance area, an art gallery lobby, and 3,000 square feet of shared work space. (Image: Ideally New Rochelle, used with permission)
Engagement before planning
In developing the DOZ, city officials and RDRXR undertook a robust public engagement process to learn about residents’ perceptions of development and ensure that any plan was supported and led by the community. This multi-stage effort—which they called “crowdsourced placemaking“—began by asking people what they’d like their community to be and then worked backwards, understanding that the ultimate buildout had to provide benefits to the community, developers, and investors.
An online forum allowed residents to submit and vote on suggestions for public spaces and amenities they’d like to see. A downtown kiosk also allowed people to submit ideas in person. The most popular ideas were included in a community benefits program (more on that below) to incentivize developers to deliver the places and amenities community members wanted.
Regulating plan for the Downtown Overlay Zone form-based code. (Image: City of New Rochelle)
program awards developers up to four additional floors if their project includes greater energy efficiency, attainable space for low-income artists, historic preservation, affordable housing, public space, entertainment venues, or specific community facilities.
And the DOZ has two elements that are particularly equitable and forward thinking. First, the new code requires that all projects provide 10 percent of the residential square footage for residents at 80 percent of area median income, on a permanent basis. Over 650 affordable units have already been approved or are under construction, with hundreds more expected by 2025. Second, the city completed a generic impact statement for projects in the overlay zone as a way to streamline New York’s traditionally onerous environmental review process.
New development
In just three years, New Rochelle has approved 31 projects—11 have broken ground and one is complete. And although many are six-story, mixed-use residential buildings or hotels, the city is beginning to receive more proposals for projects that rise 26 stories or higher. Here are a few that demonstrate the diversity of structures proposed across the city.
360 Huguenot: Developer RXR Realty earned four extra stories for this proposed 28-story mixed-use tower by including a 10,000 square-foot black-box theater and a replica of the historic Loew’s Theater marquee over the entrance as a community benefit bonus. Upper floors will include 280 residential units, 10 percent of which will be affordable to tenants earning 80 percent of the area median income.
The Lombardi was one of the first projects completed under New Rochelle’s DOZ. (Image: Karen & John Hessel, 101010NR.com, used with permission).
The Lombardi: One of the first projects completed under New Rochelle’s DOZ, the Lombardi is a six-story mixed use project that includes added retail space and 48 residential units—six of which are permanently affordable—just three blocks from the downtown transit center.
11 Garden: This mixed-use project includes a 219-unit residential component that’s entirely affordable (for 80 percent AMI) and a public plaza for all New Rochelle residents to enjoy. It will be “indistinguishable from luxury buildings” and a convenient three minute walk from the city’s train station.
2 Hamilton: This innovative, four-story, mixed-use renovation of and addition to a 90-year-old building includes 56 apartments atop original ground-floor retail space. The project was feasible due to the use of lightweight “mass timber” technology, in which cross-laminated timber is prefabricated and then quickly assembled on site like a Lego kit.