Vote Yes! on SFC By George Kuri

Letter to the Members of the Yonkers City Counsel

I wanted to again thank you for allowing the public to voice their thoughts and concerns about the SFC Project.  I also wanted to thank you for truly living up to the task of your positions and making sure of every detail with nothing but the best interest of Yonkers in mind.  At the end of the day, that is what people in your position need to do.

I don't mean to take up too much of your time with this email but last night, I could have gone on for some time with conversations I've had with people from all walks of life in our Deli and during the construction phase.

My father purchased this building in the late 70's and it was passed on to us.   We could have very easily put the building on the market, sold it, and reinvested the money somewhere else. Or we could have put the business itself up for rent and collected rent while I maintained my professional career in technology sales dealing with corporations as well as municipalities.   After a fire in June 2007 in our building, we decided to open up a family owned business in an up and coming area.  Given the timing of everything, I couldn't pass up the opportunity as the economic times were affecting how companies were spending in the business I was in and it gave me the opportunity to run and manage my own business.

The money that went into opening our doors was well above what may have needed to be spent but each and every dollar that went into our business was done so with the idea and thought that this project was going to happen.  We wanted to make sure that the Deli fit in with what the City of Yonkers had strong intentions of doing.

Now, I know given the location that we are in, as long as we manage costs,, and most importantly provide service, we will have a successful family business.  Though, the thought of what has happened to some of the businesses that banked on the development crosses my mind I am not relying on that to be our lifeline!  My father did just that years ago and there was no Ballpark being built or any new development.  Just a different Yonkers at the time.  But this is a much different time for Yonkers!

Over time, as they say, the more things change the more they stay the same!  And that is what is wrong with Yonkers now.  Nothing seems to move forward.  We are where we were years ago from a development stand point.   We have the greatest city in Westchester County by far and we are still the same, as other cities continue to grow and move forward!

Given the economic times and financial struggles of the country as a whole, it is hard to justify spending as much money as this particular type project calls for.  I want to point out to you some recent news that may seem like it has nothing to do with this project but from a management standpoint, its not that far off.

GM, an American staple, brand, and corner stone for years, just filed for bankruptcy.  As devastating as that may seem to be, it was no surprise to those that studied GM for years.  In my business classes at Manhattan College, GM was a case study..  I practically had nightmares about GM; we talked about them so much.  But I'm glad we did as I will never make the same mistake in my business or any business I take part in.  Their problems today didn't start recently but rather 30 or so years ago when management at the time didn't make the right decisions and adapt to the market around them.  They didn't reinvest properly and they were so stuck in their ways and stagnant or should I say, complacent, that they assumed that people(customers)wouldn't change their ways and always buy an "American product".  Well they did change their ways and they moved onto something different!

In our case, the people are represented by businesses and citizens.  Management is represented by you who have the ability to make sure businesses and people don't leave Yonkers and in fact are attracted to Yonkers.  This is the time to do it.

Our business (building) and everything that went into it is nothing but a microcosm of what this project would mean to Yonkers.  Its not just the future we're talking about; its the present moment as well as each moment from now until a shovel breaks ground.

We employed people for nearly 2 years in developing the site; we've financed money from local banks; we've hired people who use the money to help pay for their college tuition or help pay for rent; we've paid for local contractors, electricians, plumbers, architects, and engineers.  We've bought nearly all of the material from local businesses.  Not to mention, the number of fee's and permits paid for during the construction process as well as what was needed to open the doors.  I've paid sales tax, payroll tax, state tax, etc....  We are a deli with no corporate conglomerate backing.  With life savings and credit lines out to build this business.  I can only imagine what it would be like if companies with money in the bank wanted in and began filling the store fronts of this project.  Companies that can actually afford to offer health insurance, 401K's, vacation time, etc....  And at the same time, improve upon what Yonkers already has to offer 100 times over!

Again, as I mentioned last night, I don't know all the details.  I don't know the figures, but I can tell you that the people here, in this area, those that work in this area, the community, want this to happen!  Some people last night were worried about giving a lot of unused space to a developer as if they can take it somewhere?  Its not going any where?  But with out this project, neither is Yonkers!

I appreciate your time and really hope that you will be able to make this happen.  I don't want to be the only one to bring a Ballpark to Yonkers!!  :-)

George Kuri is the president of Kuri's Ballpark Deli at 204 New Main Street.

Comments

[Anon]

Who the @uck is George Kuri????

[anon]

"....but I can tell you that the people here,....."

And why is he speaking for everyone else?

[Jennifer Walford]

It is this same type of "free the market" mentality that has the economy in shambles. There is little if any evidence that communities are better off "investing" in projects like the SFC. Educate to elevate: "Study: Mich. business tax breaks may fall short" http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20090514/NEWS01/305190002/1001/news
AND "When Cities Are Too Generous" http://americancity.org/daily/entry/1602/

[.]

Mr. Kuri,
you should pray SFC doesn't decide to come after your property, because if they were the city would pull the little drain plug out of your nice american dream and it would all be over in about half a millisecond.

Small businesses don't stand a chance financing there own deal downtown since Yonkers cant get out of its own way. Unlike Peter Kelly & Zuppa, success is not merrit based, it's deal based, as in, You got a sick deal prior to comming into the downtown to subsidize your upfront costs to build out. In X2O's case, Millions. All the rest of the businesses are fodder for there on going shell game of lies and inuendo...and it''s not the council's fault.

Question, why would Yonkers build a brand new community across town near Stew Leonards, a place that doesn't exist or have any residents when, if they had pushed the Downtown development & began it at that time, it would be underway, shovels in the gound & funded? It makes no sense to me but for some reason the geniuses who run this place thought it best to prioritize Ridge Hill before Downtown? It's assinine to take it all for granted like they have and now the position Yonkers is in as a city, it egg on the face & no budget to boot.

George, You deserve success for you hard work & dedication, just don't count on the power that be to come through for you. You have to make it on your own.

[0-11]

So
F'n
Corrupt

[anon]

new main street is a rat hole

[New Kid on the block]

george wake up

[anon]

new main street is the most thriving street in downtown.
always has been.

Best of luck George.
we all deserve it for putting up with these corrupt pigs.

[anon]

Amen, George.

[anon]

new main street is a illegal DUMP..

[oh well]

Define Thriving? Thriving with what? Please use it in a sentence

[Lifer]

Good luck, George! It's people like you and your family, rather than the SFC vultures, that are the backbone of cities like Yonkers. I can bet you and easily win that you have already invested far more out of your pocket than Cappelli has out of his. I hope for you and all of us that you succeed.

[anon]

hey george, get out while you can..

[LL]

Yonkers cited for poor record keeping
YONKERS - An audit of a city-administered job-creation loan program found that inadequate oversight produced few jobs for low-income residents.

The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development cited Yonkers for "significant weaknesses" in its controls of the Section 108 Loan Guarantee Program, which resulted in the creation of just 209 verifiable jobs out of the 1,915 that were supposed to be created by loan recipients between 1997 and 2007.

The city's problems included inadequate monitoring of the use of the loans, failure to notify HUD of loan defaults, poorly maintained loan-repayment accounts and little data on job creation.

The March 6 audit blamed staff in the city's planning and economic development offices, which suffered from staff turnover.

In some cases the low-interest loans didn't produce a single verified job.
A $3.4 million loan in 2000 to acquire property promised 520 jobs but only created one after the loan was repaid.
A 2007 loan for $950,000 was for developing a restaurant and ferry landing on the waterfront. That project is up and running, but city records could not verify that any jobs were created, even though people currently work there.
Planning and Development Commissioner Lou Kirven called the city's loan program a success despite the poor record-keeping, which he said the city will improve.
He added that the low number of jobs reported does not reflect the true numbers.
"The Ridge Hill project has a very low number (of jobs reported), but if you go up there you see hundreds of people working," said Kirven, who in February wrote to HUD detailing all the corrective actions the city will take.
Yonkers residents Valerie Pearson and Annette Arthur, members of Community Voices Heard, brought the audit to The Journal News' attention. The women said it casts doubt on city officials' job-creation claims regarding downtown redevelopment.
Kirven said that even if loan recipients failed to create the projected jobs, the city must continue lending.
Councilwoman Sandy Annabi, D-2nd District, sits on the Section 108 Loan Committee and said that, in the two year's she's been on it, it only met once. She criticized the selection of loan recipients.
Kirven said the loan committee only met when there was a need to take action and that loan recipients are chosen based on their ability to repay the loans, which the city must make whole if there is a default.
____________________________
More FEDS!!!! What about the NYS Main Street grant? Where's that money?

[LL]

NYT article on architecture, June 6, 2009:
Just do a "search and replace" for "Forest City Ratner" to "SFC" and "Brooklyn" to Yonkers. This looks like there's a "Developer 101" course out there that all these boys aced:

The recent news that the developer Forest City Ratner had scrapped Frank Gehry’s design for a Nets arena in central Brooklyn is not just a blow to the art of architecture. It is a shameful betrayal of the public trust, one that should enrage all those who care about this city.

Whatever you may have felt about Mr. Gehry’s design — too big, too flamboyant — there is little doubt that it was thoughtful architecture. His arena complex, in which the stadium was embedded in a matrix of towers resembling falling shards of glass, was a striking addition to the Brooklyn skyline; it was also a fervent effort to engage the life of the city below.

A new design by the firm Ellerbe Becket has no such ambitions. A colossal, spiritless box, it would fit more comfortably in a cornfield than at one of the busiest intersections of a vibrant metropolis. Its low-budget, no-frills design embodies the crass, bottom-line mentality that puts personal profit above the public good. If it is ever built, it will create a black hole in the heart of a vital neighborhood.

But what’s most offensive about the design is the message it sends to New Yorkers. Architecture, we are being told, is something decorative and expendable, a luxury we can afford only in good times, or if we happen to be very rich. What’s most important is to build, no matter how thoughtless or dehumanizing the results. It is the kind of logic that kills cities — and that has been poisoning this one for decades.

I suppose we should have seen this coming. The scale and location of the project posed serious challenges — challenges that could not be solved by the conventional development formulas. Arenas are notorious black holes in urban neighborhoods, sitting empty most of the year and draining the life around them. And in this case, the arena would dominate a major intersection and anchor a dense 22-acre residential development several blocks to the east.

Mr. Gehry began by asking a simple question: Is it possible to integrate an arena of this size into the city? Many architects would attempt to disguise the structure behind banners and billboards. Mr. Gehry’s solution was more inventive: to envelop the arena in the fabric of the city itself.

He began by surrounding the arena with four residential towers — essentially burying it in the middle of the triangular block at the southeast corner of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues. A glass-enclosed public space, several stories high, projected out from one of the towers toward the intersection, like the prow of a ship. An oval lawn, surrounded by a running track, covered the arena’s roof. Open only to the towers’ tenants, it nonetheless added to the feel that the building had been swallowed up by the city.

Perhaps the most ingenious aspect of the design was the way it met the street. Along Atlantic and Flatbush, where the bowl of the arena bulged out between the residential towers, Mr. Gehry clad it in panels of curved glass, so that people passing by could peer directly into the concourse. From certain perspectives, views opened up straight through the arena itself.

There were valid objections to the design. Some people argued that it was overscaled — traffic would be a nightmare — and that it would destroy the character of the neighborhood. But to those of us who defended it, Mr. Gehry’s design was an ingenious solution to a seemingly intractable problem, one that would provide a focal point for an area (and arguably a borough) that could use some cohesion. Like all great architecture, it challenged our assumptions of what a building of its type can do.

The rest of the story is a depressing illustration of how New York development gets done. While Forest City Ratner fought for more and more concessions from the city — demanding tax breaks, reducing the number of affordable housing units — Mr. Gehry was forced to trim back his design. First the rooftop park was dropped because it was too expensive. The prowlike public space was redesigned, then redesigned again, until it began to look like a conventional atrium.
Worst of all, the main tower at the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush was stripped of much of its vitality. Once a dynamic composition of tumbling glass shards, it became a more static form of irregularly stacked boxes, one that failed to capture the energy of the traffic streaming by on both sides. Then the towers, too, began to disappear, one by one, until the arena bowl was left naked and exposed to the street.
Still, this was not enough. In a stunning bait-and-switch, Forest City Ratner (which was the development partner for The New York Times Company’s headquarters in Midtown) has now decided that it can’t afford an architect of Mr. Gehry’s stature. Neglecting to tell the public, the firm went out months ago and hired Ellerbe Becket, corporate architects known for producing generic, unimaginative buildings. And although it has refused to release details of the design, the renderings, obtained by The New York Times, tell you all you need to know.

A massive vaulted shed that rests on a masonry base, the arena is as glamorous as a storage warehouse. A rectangular window overlooks Atlantic, but without the other buildings it lacks the sense of mystery and surprise that was such an essential part of the Gehry design. A trapezoidal brick and glass box at the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush is obviously intended as an echo of Gehry’s public space. But Gehry’s room, several stories tall, soared over the intersection. Ellerbe Becket’s, lower to the ground, just sits there, adding nothing.

Building this monstrosity at such a critical urban intersection would be deadly. Clearly, the city would be better off with nothing. But what’s at issue here is more than the betrayal of a particular community, as tragic as that could be. It is the way the city makes decisions about large-sale development.

Typically, a developer comes to the city with big plans. Promises are made. Serious architects are brought in. The needs of the community, like ample parkland and affordable housing, are taken into account. Editorial boards and critics, like me, praise the design for its ambition.

Eventually, the project takes on a momentum of its own. The city and state, afraid of an embarrassing public failure, feel pressured to get the project done at any cost, and begin to make concessions. Given the time such developments take to build, sometimes a decade or more, we then hit the inevitable economic downturn. The developer pleads poverty. Desperate to avoid more economic bad news, government officials cut a deal.

It’s a familiar ending, made more nauseating because we have seen it so many times before. And it can’t be solved by simply crunching numbers. It demands a profound shift in mentality. What we have now is a system in which decent architecture and the economic needs of developers are in fundamental opposition. Until that changes, there will be more Atlantic Yards in our future.

[.]

Hey George:
Here she comes buddy.
I mean if Davie says so, it must be true.

NY Times

Westchester: Stadium on a Roof

Published: June 12, 2009
Westchester County does not have a minor league baseball team, although a proposal to build a stadium and field a team has long been floated by the City of Yonkers. That plan is now moving forward as part of a huge shopping, commercial and entertainment development planned for the city’s downtown.

The $1.6 billion complex, to be built by Struever Fidelco Cappelli, would be called SFC River Park Center and would include a 6,500-seat stadium, costing $45 million, built on the roof of a 10-story building. David Simpson, a Yonkers spokesman, described the stadium as “essentially a green roof.”

The Yonkers Planning Board recently approved the project, and it is now up for final approval by the City Council, with a vote possible by the end of this month. If the complex is approved, the expected completion date for the stadium would be 2012.

Mr. Simpson said the team hopes to attract “regular people” who have been priced out of Yankee Stadium and CitiField.

He said the stadium would be big enough and have enough fencing to keep even towering home runs from flying out of the park and dropping to the street far below.

City officials said that they had secured a commitment from Mary Jane Foster and Jack McGregor, former owners of another minor league team, the Bridgeport Bluefish, to back a Yonkers team, and from officials of the independent Atlantic League, who they said promised the team a slot. Specifics, including a name, have yet to be worked out.

“We want to get the stadium built — then worry about the team,” Mr. Simpson said.
COREY KILGANNON

[lol]

Yonkers Con Artists

Yonkers Liars

Yonkers Scumbags

Yonkers Wanna Be's

[anon]

hey george , you should run for mayor.

[blah]

The letter is sincere, problem is the people who run this city east their own.

[.]

We get the letter is sincere
No doubt George is a hard working guy who invested everything he had into a business on New Main Street.

George: congratulations and best of luck.

The problem is not Mr. Kuri or his letter.
The problem is the pattern of INFERRED inducements from city hall directly related to the flawed agenda of the mayor.

They play a game of intentions that never see fruition.
A game of propping up a place only to deliberately blight it.

George: do what you do because you believe in it. Not because these idiots told you anything.
You also have a great sense of humor----you’ll need it.

They should all be in jail.
And if I can help to get them there—let me know.

[anon]

kuri should of realized all the other businesses in the downtown have failed under amicoon, new main should be knocked down.

[69]

Anywhere you go, there you are...unfortunatly it Yonkers & Phil Ammicone is running the place into the ground. He used the city for his gains but his gains have failed so now Yonkers fails.

[.]

city hall should be knocked down

[George Kuri]

Thanks to all of you for the wishes and kind words! We appreciate them.

If you're ever in the downtown area of Yonkers and want a great lunch, stop by. The Ballpark is open for business! The area isn't all that bad and as a matter of fact, has improved my Spanish speaking skills!

Take care
gk