WPCNR MR. & MRS. & MS. WHITE PLAINS VOICE. May 11, 2006: Mayor Alfred Del Vecchio (Mayor of White Plains from 1976 through 1993) recalls the office vacancy crisis of the 80s:
John,
Aaron Woodin's incisive analysis of the 80's office vacancy rate in White Plains is exactly right. A case in point is the office building, Westchester One, built by Sal Pepe during the Hendey Administration in the early 70's.
Mr Pepe, a superb and conscientious developer, built Westchester One to accommodate IBM with very large office spaces. He also built the garage using his own money with no subsidy or grant from the city. At that time, the building was the tallest building between New York City and Albany, so I was told. I do remember its size was a concern to the administration. I was a councilman.
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In the late 80's, when IBM made the decision to move out of White Plains, that one vacancy created a large % gap in White Plains office occupancy. While it is true that developers did overbuild office facilities, White Plains did make a conscious decision to build the only inner city Mall in Westchester County as a change from office development.
Nevertheless, the 32.7% vacancy number was neither "embarrassing" (Paul Wood's words) or hurt the city in any way. Mr Pepe still paid his taxes and even paid a good portion of a Special Assessment District Tax that the city imposed on the downtown property owners for the beautification of downtown business district.
We did not have a Business Improvement District to collect city property taxes and confuse the statistics of cost accounting, but that's another story which still has to be told. Incidentally, while we know a high vacancy rate existed in the country, we don't know exactly which buildings in White Plains were used in the calculations. I do recall questions being asked about the validity of the number by some office building owners. But that's not really important.
In any event, Sal Pepe spent more of his money and reworked the interior of his building into smaller offices which he was able to rent. He did this on his own. The City did not have to spend any taxpayer's money for special incentives and advertisements or any other gimmicks at that time to decrease the office vacancy rate. Marketing initiatives and changing building configurations by the developer made the change.
As a result of the developer's initiatives and his willingness to pay his taxes and negotiate certiorari claims in good faith, the City remained very solvent and property taxes were held at a reasonable level. Any politician who tries to claim credit for changing the office vacancy rate from the 80's is merely finding an excuse for wasting taxpayer's money.
Alfred Del Vecchio
