Yonkers Business Week awardees are: Homes for America, The
Westchester County Business Journal,
Robert MacFarlane has multimillion-dollar, high-rise condo developments about to open on the Gulf IRL of Mexico in Fort Myers, Fla., but it's the plans he has for neighborhoods near his Point Street Landing project that brings a smile to his face.
Through Enclaves Group Inc., of which his wife, Emilia Nuccio, is vice president, MacFarlane is seeking to build attainable workforce housing. "It's a way that one or two people with modest wages can rent a condo and gain ownership and get a piece of the rock that we all work to have," he said.
"It's for the teachers, the firefighters, emergency workers (who don't earn much) but need a place to live," Nuccio said.
The plan would allow renters to lease for three years, after which the payments could- be- used toward a down payment.
MacFarlane along with Robert Kohn founded Homes For America Holdings Inc. in January 1996. The company li~is grown impressively over the past 11 years to $190 million in gross assets. Focusing on the purchase of undervalued properties with excellent potential. Homes for America bought properties in Florida, Texas, New York, Connecticut and Indiana, growing the portfolio to now more than 1,600 residential rental units and 572,000 square feet of commercial space.
MacFarlane built the $12 million Station Plaza, a 70,000-square-foot commercial building downtown, the first in more than 70 years. The building is home to the company's headquarters.
The workforce housing that MacFarlane and Nuccio are seeking to build would be next to the $1 billion. Point Street Landing project on the site of the former Phelps Dodge Cable company. The site was less than desirable since it was filled with PCBs, lead and asbestos. Even the brick walls were filled with the toxic material and had to be knocked down and removed. And not wanting to be a nuisance to the adjoining neighborhoods by having huge construction trucks rumbling by, MacFarlane re-established a railroad siding that allowed freight cars to be loaded and carry the toxic material to the Midwest where it was destroyed in an incinerating process. The cost of the cleanup was $32 million. As far as the amount of reusable fill the site afforded, MacFarlane said it wouldn't even fill a drinking glass.
Homes for America is seeking approvals from the city to build Point Street Landing, which would include a 1,124unit apartment complex with retail and commercial space.
It is MacFarlane's hope that each of the six buildings in the project be designed by architects of different ethnic and racial backgrounds to represent the cultural diversity of the city.
MacFarlane is currently in talks with Ken Yeang of the London-based international design company Llewelyn Davies Yeang. "He is one of the greatest environmental architects in the world today," MacFarlane noted. "He believes in totally green buildings."
MacFarlane said the site of his development is unique due to the Hudson River, which is unlike other flat, alluvial plains, in that it carves through the escarpments of the Palisades and offers breathtaking views of the cliffs as well as Manhattan to the south and the Tappan Zee Bridge to the north. He wants this project not to be a blight on the river and has sought out the views of neighbors and Scenic Hudson. His choice of Yeang is in keeping with an ecological design that once built would be "the shot heard 'round the world," he said.
He said there is a need to keep the neighborhood in mind when building. "All too often, developers come in not respectful of the community. People in the community should benefit from a project."
"The epicenter should be the neighborhood (and then spread) like ripples in a pond."
