PRESS RELEASE: Stagg Group Gets Approval for New Apartment Building in Yonkers

YONKERS, NY— March 23, 2017 — Stagg Group has today announced that its plan for transforming a rundown abandoned property in Yonkers into a new luxury rental building is after three tears of review and community outreach is finally moving ahead.

The Yonkers City Council voted on March 21st to rezone 705 Bronx River Road from commercial to residential thereby allowing the Stagg Group to move forward with its plans to develop a 160-unit, nine-story luxury apartment rental building with parking.

After investing $7 million into the project, the Stagg Group asserts their plan is to begin demolition within the next 30 days and start construction later this spring. The new complex will take up a city block on Bronx River Road, Crescent Place and Reyer and Springer Avenues. Currently, the block has an empty commercial building, parking lot and the 5 houses Stagg Group has acquired on Crescent Place.

For the past three years, the Stagg Group has met repeatedly with neighbors and worked with City officials to adjust the number of units and address parking and density concerns so that it could proceed with plans to raze the existing structure and build new apartments there.

“We want to be part of the solution,” said Mark Stagg, President of the real estate development company that is best known for the many units of housing it has built in Westchester County and The Bronx since 1996. “We wanted to find out what works best for the neighborhood, what works best for the city.”

When Stagg first acquired the rundown property at 705 Bronx River Road in 2013, he envisioned it as the new headquarters for his company. “We liked its central location and the fact that the building could accommodate all of our employees under one roof,” he said.

But after inspecting the abandoned building, which had undergone four awkward additions over the years, Stagg realized that renovating the existing structure was not economically feasible. “It’s completely unworkable as is. It’s a tiny commercial island surrounded by residences. If you look at a map, it looks like a missing tooth,” he said.

After meeting with neighbors, it became clear that their primary concerns were about density. To address those concerns, Stagg and his team reduced the number of units several times, going from as high as 224 apartments to its current plan for 160 rental units. “We realized that 160 is the right number,” Stagg said. “This is what the neighborhood wants.”