Mayor Idoni was our guest speaker tonight. I will try and summarize his message to us.

Mayor Idoni thought things were getting better since the last 5 or 10 years when the state economy was in a slow down. He thought there’s now been a change in the attitude of people with development money to spend. For example, just today, the mayor came from the opening of the Radisson hotel where they spent 5 million to upgrade the entrance and the restaurant. Here’s the 4-part plan that’s working.

1) Was to bring into the city an entertainment component. A destination spot for local and others. That of course is New Roc City, which brings in 2-3 million people a year. It’s the 4^th largest grossing theater in the country. Models and Ballys Fitness are 300% over the expected earnings.

2) Housing to downtown. The mayor found that Las Vegas had the right idea when they brought housing into the heart if the city. The first successful project was Avalon. 424 units here. Then the 72 Live / Work lofts in the old Bloomingdale building. 69 of these are sold already and are already setup with computer lines. These went for $250 – $450k.

Then the old Lillian Vernon building on Main Street is gearing up or 90 Condos ; and across the street from Avalon will be a 39-story building.

3) A transportation center. This has been a 10-year project in the making and is nearing completion. Its clean and safe and full of cameras linked directly to the police station at New Roc. The buses will be able to get right off and on interstate 95 – not have to block traffic at Franklin Avenue.

4) Retail. This is the hardest to get. The main reason is New Rochelle doesn’t have the traffic patterns these big companies demand. They want to know their millions invested will be in big payoffs. Large retailers won’t even look at us. However, there are smaller parcels of land, like the 2 acres around the K building that the city is working on with developers to bring retail in.

The next topic was the 17 acres around the City Yard and the Armory. This parcel of land could be developed. The fist thing is to move the city Yard over to Beechmont Avenue area. Then they have to get the Con-Ed substation and Echo area cleaned up. The idea is to have a small boardwalk connecting the 5 Islands to this area with a small boardwalk. There could be small retail, small restaurants and a small marina. Maybe a few luxury condos in the later steps.

Every developer wants in on this gig.

Obviously this is also an environmentally sensitive issue.

The mayor went discussing how we needed to bring financial stability back to the city and how the 4-part plan above will help that. Going against us has been a flat sales tax, the funding of pension plans and the property tax grievances that have lowered the revenue for the city.