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WPCNR EAST SIDE STORY. May 27, 2014:

Urstadt Biddle, owners of the White Plains Pavilion, has posted on their website architect’s renderings of a city-within-a-city they envision to be built on the site of the sparsely rented White Plains Pavilion.

The developer, according to Mayor Tom Roach, in remarks first reported by WPCNR March 25, envisions apartments, a hotel and a series of shops leading up from the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Architect’s renderings presented for the first time publicly were spotted by a CitizeNetReporter without any significant written description on the Urstadt Biddle website.

At that meeting, March 25, Mayor Roach noted:
The Mayor told Rotary, the owners of the Pavilion are requesting a zoning change for mixed use to redevelop the site.  He noted the zoning change has not been approved by the Common Council yet.

However, the Mayor told Rotary about a design that would have a threshold reminiscent of Rome’s Spanish Steps leading up from the Crowne Plaza Hotel that from the sounds of it would be totally unique in the metropolitan area.

On the north side of the steps, Roach said would be a series retail and restaurants, perhaps at the top of the steps a hotel, and fronting on Maple Avenue would be residential buildings, he said would compliment the new apartments going up on DeKalb. The idea appeared created a buzz in the audience.

Here is the Urstadt-Biddle vision, as it appears on the Urstadt-Biddle website:

The White Plains Pavilion today.

The new “City-Within-a-City” seen from across the street from the Crowne Plaza sees what the Mayor called “a series of Spanish Steps” leading up to the new complex.

A pedestrian walkway, shops, boutiques at pedestrian level, apartments above.

View from across Maple Avenue. At far right is Crowne Plaza Hotel.

A closer look at the above view.

Automobile traffic would circulate into and out of the complex.