10 - Part 10 - Commercial DevelopmentPlanning Base Studies
Village of Rye Brook, New York
Chapter 10 Commercial Development
10-1
May 2012
Prepared by the Westchester County Department of Planning
10.1 Existing Conditions
Commercial development in Rye Brook is largely comprised of re-
tail, office and hotel uses. As discussed in Chapter 3, retail uses
comprise approximately 21 acres, while office buildings, often in
campus settings, comprise 113 acres. Two large hotels comprise 68
acres. Map 10-1 shows the locations of these commercial, retail and
office land uses.
A. Retail Land Use
Commercial retail development in Rye Brook is largely focused at
the southern end of the village along the major thoroughfares of
Bowman Avenue, Westchester Avenue and South Ridge Street. The
intersection of Bowman Avenue and South Ridge Street is gener-
ally the intersection that marks the “downtown” of the village as it
is where the Rye Ridge Shopping Center is located, which is the
village’s largest retail center. Additional, smaller scale retail and
commercial uses line both sides of South Ridge Street south of
Bowman Avenue. Small scale commercial uses are also located
with semi-regular frequencies on Westchester Avenue and Bowman
Avenue east of South Ridge Street
.
CHAPTER 10 COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Figure 10-1. Retail Development in Rye Brook
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MAP NOTE: Commercial properties were derivedfrom parcel-based land use inventory in which landuse categories were originally derived from 2009town assessment data containing ORPS (Office ofReal Property Services) codes which define specificland use as assigned by local assessors.
Village of Rye Brook, NY
HARRISON
Commercial Development
Westchester CountyDepartment of PlanniningApril 2012
Planning Base Studies
Legend
Commercial and Retail
Office and Research
Hotels and Conference Centers
Westchester
County Airport
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Map 10 - 1Commercial DevelopmentPage 10 - 2
Planning Base Studies
Village of Rye Brook, New York
Chapter 10 Commercial Development
10-3
May 2012
Prepared by the Westchester County Department of Planning
B. Office Land Use
Larger scale commercial developments, mostly involving office
building and hotel uses are located along the periphery of the Vil-
lage. The most notable of these is 800 Westchester Avenue, which
contains 532,680 square feet of “class A” office space and essen-
tially serves as the gateway to the village when entering from the
west on any of the major roadways. While this office building was
originally constructed as the worldwide headquarters for General
Foods in 1983, it has since evolved into a multi-tenant facility. 800
Westchester Avenue is also connected to 760 Westchester Avenue
on the same site via underground tunnels. This secondary building
contains 62,000 square feet of office space.
The Reckson Executive Park is another cluster of seven “class A”
office buildings located at the north end of the village along King
Street. This office park contains a total of 855,204 square feet. An
additional, multi-tenant office property is located on Arbor Drive at
the eastern edge of the village near the Village municipal complex.
C. Hotel Land Use
Hotel and conference center uses also comprise a significant por-
tion of Rye Brook’s commercial development. The Hilton West-
chester - Rye Brook (locally sometimes referred to as Rye Town
Hilton), located at 699 Westchester Avenue, contains 445 guest
rooms and flexible meeting/conference room space up to 9,520
square feet in size. While located at the western gateway to the Vil-
lage, this hotel facility (along with 800 Westchester Avenue across
the street) serves as an anchor to the Westchester Avenue “platinum
mile” in Harrison and White Plains.
The Doral Arrowwood hotel and conference center is both a resort
and business-focused hotel containing 373 guest rooms, several
meeting spaces and a golf course. This facility is located on 114
acres at the north end of the Village on Anderson Hill Road. Pfizer
Corporation also has a 110,000 square foot training center on the
grounds of this facility.
D. Commercial Zoning
The existing commercial uses largely reflect existing zoning. Retail
uses can generally only be put in the C1 or C1-P districts, all of
which are located in the general vicinity of Bowman Avenue and
South Ridge Street. A few outlying retail properties east of Ridge
Street on Bowman Avenue or Westchester Avenue are pre-existing
non-conforming uses in residential districts.
The Village has four office zoning districts which relate to different
minimum acreages ranging from 3 to 15 acres. These districts are
generally mapped where the existing office uses are located.
Figure 10-2. Reckson
Executive Park
Source: Westchester County Department of
Planning
Planning Base Studies
Village of Rye Brook, New York
10-4
May 2012
Prepared by the Westchester County Department of Planning
Chapter 10 Commercial Development
The Village has two hotels zoning districts. One is currently located
on the existing Hilton Westchester-Rye Brook property. The other
hotel district is at the corner of King Street and Anderson Hill Road,
where a housing development has been approved, but has not yet
been constructed. Doral Arrowwood is in a PUD-Planned Unit De-
velopment district. PUD districts can also include retail, residential
and office uses. For more information about zoning, go to Chapter
12.
Figure 10-3. Major Employer List for Rye Brook
Employer Number of Workers
Southern Westchester BOCES 1,080
Doral Arrowwood 500
MCI 400
Hilton 350
A&P Fresh 250
Blind Brook-Rye Union Free School
District 204
United Cerebral Palsy 200
Marriott 150
New York State Department of
Taxation and Finance 150
King Street Nursing Home 130
Compass Group USA 125
Hoenig & Co Inc. 108
D'Agostino’s 100
Pfizer 100
Market Data Corporation 100
Worldcom 90
Ben-Lee Distributors 90
Dental Study Club of New York 75
Village of Rye Brook 74
Port Chester-Rye Brook Ambulance 50
Parsons & Whittemore Inc. 50
Source: InfoUSA and the Westchester/ Putnam School Board Association, 2008
Planning Base Studies Village of Rye Brook, New York Chapter 10 Commercial Development
10-5 May 2012 Prepared by the Westchester County Department of Planning
E. Major Employers The majority of employers in Rye Book involve white-collar jobs requiring at least some college education. According to U.S. Census statistics, in 2009 at least 60% of the workers in the village had at-tained a level of education above the high school level. Most of the jobs are in educational services (27%), public administration (15%), health care (11%), professional, scientific and technical services (5%) and finance and insurance (5%). Retail jobs account for 8%. Because of the focus on professional white-collar jobs, most of the employment tends to be in the multi-tenant office spaces in the pe-riphery of the village. The most recent data on major employers is from 2004 and may be substantially different currently due to the flexible nature of these multi-tenant office environments. See Fig-ure 10.3 for the major employer list as of 2004. The majority of the employment is within the major office buildings as well as at the village’s school complex. Retail jobs are clustered near the Rye Ridge Shopping Center.
F. Spatial Relationship of Jobs to Residency 2010 Census data and 2009 Longitudinal Employer-Household Dy-namics (LEHD) have allowed for a more recent snapshot of em-ployment by industry and where people live in relationship to their jobs. This data is included in tabular form in Appendix 10-1. According to LEHD data, there are 5,820 jobs within the village. There are 3,589 residents who have jobs, which represents a posi-tive net inflow of jobs given that the number of jobs in the village is higher than the number of residents who have jobs. However, of the 3,589 residents with jobs, only 314 (8.7%) live and work within the village. The remaining 3,275 resident workers commute elsewhere. This also means that 5,506 workers come in to the village from elsewhere to work. a. Out-Commutation Of the 3,589 residents with jobs, only 314 (8.7%) live and work within the village. The rest likely commute to other places for work. The overwhelming majority of Rye Brook working residents com-mute to other places in Westchester (39.8%), Manhattan (22.9%) or Fairfield County (11.4%). All other New York Metro region coun-ties receive approximately 2% or less of the Rye Brook resident work force. Within Westchester, the majority of the out-commutation is focused on the southern half of the county in Port Chester (5.9%), White Plains (5.8%), Harrison (4.7%), Rye (city) (3.6%), New Rochelle (2.2%) and Yonkers (2.2%).
Source: 2009 LEHD Data
Figure 10-4. Inflow/Outflow Job Counts in 2009
Planning Base Studies
Village of Rye Brook, New York
10-6
May 2012
Prepared by the Westchester County Department of Planning
Chapter 10 Commercial Development
b. In-Commutation
Of the 5,820 workers in Rye Brook, only 314 (5.4%) live in the vil-
lage as well. The rest must commute from other places for work.
Just over half (50.9%) come from other places in Westchester. The
remainder are scattered amongst the various metro-area counties in
relatively low quantities: Fairfield (7.4%), the Bronx (5.2%), Put-
nam (3.8%), Manhattan (3.4%), Rockland (3.3%), Queens (2.8%),
Nassau (2.4%), Suffolk (2.3%), Dutchess (2.1%), Orange (1.7%),
Brooklyn (1.3%) and Bergen (1.2%). This scattering of employ-
ment residency is perhaps a function of the office park development
that is prevalent in the village, pulling more educated workers in
from a wide geographic catchment. Within Westchester, the major-
ity of the in-commutation is focused on the southern half of the
county: Port Chester (9.4%), Yonkers (5.3%), White Plains (4.7%),
New Rochelle (3.1%), Mount Vernon (2.9%) and Harrison (2.6%).
10.2 Potential Future Conditions
A. Existing Commercial Zoning and Future Commercial
Growth
Future commercial growth is limited by two factors: the fact that a
majority of the village is not commercially zoned, and the fact that
most of the village is already built-out. According to Westchester
County land use data, only 75 acres (or 3%) of the Village is vacant
or undeveloped. (see Chapter 3, the Use of Land). Only a portion of
this undeveloped area is commercially zoned.
The most notable vacant commercially zoned area is immediately
east of the Reckson Executive Park. This area is where a “Phase
III” expansion of the Reckson Executive Park has been approved,
but has not yet been built. See Chapter 13, Zoning Build-out and
Analysis, for further discussion and analysis of future village-wide
development potential.
Other existing commercially zoned parcels could be developed fur-
ther though changing the uses on them, or potentially subdividing
pieces off for future development.
B. Potential Commercial Development Scenarios Through Zon-
ing Changes
Given the built-out nature of the village, and the relatively low
amount of vacant, commercially zoned land available, the village
will not experience a huge growth in commercial properties unless
there is a desire to change zoning regulations. The Village of Rye
Brook Vision Plan, written in 2000, articulated a number of strate-
gies which could still be relevant today for increasing commercial
development:
Planning Base Studies
Village of Rye Brook, New York
Chapter 10 Commercial Development
10-7
May 2012
Prepared by the Westchester County Department of Planning
Undertake a study to help define and create a “village center”
through the establishment of new zoning regulations and design
standards, which could potentially lead to more downtown re-
tail.
Create a Business Overlay District as a way to allow for more
mixed-use development.
Increase development densities, either through rezonings or
transfer of development rights from lesser developed areas to
established commercial areas.
C. Changes In Employment Levels
Given the fact that college-educated office jobs are the majority of
employment in the village, major employment levels will likely be
a function of office space occupancy within the village’s office
properties. Most recently, the trend in office space usage has been
away from large, single-tenant properties, in the direction of multi-
tenant spaces. This situation has played out at 800 Westchester
Avenue, which was originally designed as a world headquarters for
General Foods, but has since changed into a multi-tenant building.
This type of trend may mean more total employers in the village,
but with fewer employees in each organization than if these proper-
ties remained as single tenants. Given that almost all of the office
space in the Village is “class A”, office tenants will tend to be more
established companies as opposed to start-up ventures, or back-
office operations which typically utilize non-class-A spaces.
Focusing attention on the creation of new regulations to define a
“village center” in Rye Brook, could offer an opportunity for more
retail, or mixed-use-with-retail, development, allowing for an ex-
pansion of retail employment.