WPCNR SOUTH END TIMES. Special to WPCNR From the French-American School of New York.(EDITED) May 23, 2011:
The French-American School of New York (FASNY) announced today it has submitted its plan for the creation of a campus on a portion of the former Ridgeway Country Club to the City of White Plains.
Rendering of the French-American School of New York planned for the former site of Ridgeway Country Club.The new campus design is seen from Ridgeway Avenue looking North. The building to the left is the former Ridgeway Clubhouse, converted to the F.A.S.N.Y. high school and offices. The low rise buildig to the right is the new Middle School. Rendering, courtesy, The French-American School of New York.
It will enable the unification of the four divisions that are now housed in three Westchester communities. The submission formalizes initial concept plans that the school first presented to the community at an open house last January after it had completed the purchase of the club.
The proposal limits the campus to 40 acres of development while preserving 60 acres — a “Gedney Preserve” for walking, jogging and bicycling.
The plan will now be subject to a detailed environmental review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act or SEQRA. It is expected to take approximately a year. The Common Council is expected to be the lead agency in conducting the SEQRA review and other approvals.
Although in April the Common Council imposed a six-month moratorium on development primarily affecting golf course properties in White Plains while it studies potential future zoning changes, FASNY’s application is permitted to proceed.
“FASNY will be a valuable economic and cultural asset for White Plains,” said Mischa Zabotin, Chairman of the FASNY Board of Trustees. “We genuinely believe our proposal is the best viable use for the property. We will create what we believe is a carefully planned, environmentally sensitive amenity for the City, one that seeks to protect and preserve the community character of the neighborhood, while bringing true economic and cultural value and diversity. We look forward to the dialogue with the City and the public in the coming months in making this another great educational institution in the City.”
The plan for the 129-acre property clusters most of the school’s use to just 40 acres at the south end of the already disturbed portion of the property. Extensive vegetative buffer areas will surround the school’s perimeter. State-of-the-art storm bio-filtration and other stormwater measures will be implemented to address the existing poor drainage conditions at the site. Extensive “green” building techniques and practices are incorporated in architectural plans throughout the campus.
“Gedney Preserve”
FASNY has set aside 60 buildable acres (not including wetlands) as permanent publicly accessible open space. Additional acreage is expected to be added to this as the details of the plan are discussed with the city’s planners and the public. This open space, valued at $8 million, will become The Gedney Preserve, a passive natural area with public trails for walking, jogging and bicycling. It will also be linked to the city’s existing trail network and will be the largest open space in the City of White Plains more than doubling the current total acreage for all the City’s parks. Additionally, FASNY will make its ball fields available for public use as appropriate.
Under the plan, vehicle access to the site is restricted to a new two lane, tree-lined entry drive. No school traffic will be permitted to exit north on Hathaway Lane into the existing Gedney Farms residential neighborhood.
The access drives to both the middle and high schools and the pre-k and elementary school have been carefully designed to accommodate both buses and cars within the campus for student drop-off and pick-up and to avoid queuing on Ridgeway. As part of the approval process the City will determine what improvements, if any, may be appropriate for Ridgeway. FASNY would pay for such improvements.
Campus Components
The proposed campus is divided into two sections fronting on Ridgeway and separated by Hathaway Lane. The key elements are:
West side between Hathaway Lane and Murcheson Place includes both the Upper or High School and the Middle School. The buildings will be set around a central courtyard.
- Upper (High) School: The former golf clubhouse will be adaptively re-designed to become the Upper School (grades 9-12) and will also have administrative offices. It will be linked by a section of new construction to what had been the golf club’s fitness and dormitory building. There will be 20 classrooms as well as music, art and science rooms and a library. The ballroom of the club will become the cafeteria for both the Middle and High Schools.
- Middle School: This is a new two-story building serving grades 6-8 and will include 12 classrooms, music, art and science classrooms and a library.
- Gymnasium: The gym will serve both the Middle and Upper Schools. It will feature three regulation basketball courts and locker rooms. The gym can be divided into separate sections to allow multiple activities to take place at the same time. It will also have a temporary stage.
- Performing Arts Building: To be built at a later time, this facility will be tied to the gym by a common center entrance hall. It will include an auditorium with a stage and 495 seats, a blackbox theater and practice and rehearsal rooms.
- Outdoor Athletic Facilities: Three soccer regulation soccer fields, one with an all-weather turf and two with natural grass, a softball field and four tennis courts. A baseball field reached by a walking path is on the north side of Hotel Drive. There will be no bleachers.
East side to the right of Hathaway Lane.
A single U-shaped, one- and two-story building will house the Nursery, Pre-K, Kindergarten and Elementary School (grades 1-5) children. Each wing has its own entrance and administration office. The two wings of the building are linked by a two-story section that includes the gym and cafeterias. A general use playing field is adjacent to the elementary wing. A two-way circular drive will accommodate both cars and buses on site.
- Nursery, Pre-K, K Division : The one-story section is on the Ridgeway side and includes two Nursery, three pre-k and four kindergarten classrooms with a common area in between that can accommodate group activities. Each classroom has direct access to the outside for play.
- Elementary School: The left section of the building has 20 classrooms, music, art and science rooms and a library.
Special Environmental Considerations
Managing Stormwater
- Careful attention has been given to the handling of stormwater on the proposed campus. The focus has been to design systems that capture and manage all stormwater on-site. Among the key steps being taken are the creation of three retention ponds, two on opposite sides of the new entrance drive serving the west side and one on the east side of the campus. All water coming from the building roofs will be captured and filtered into garden planters.
Building “Green”
- Environmentally sensitive green building practices and materials will be incorporated throughout the project. All walkways on campus will be made of permeable materials. Parking lot runoff will be piped to bio-filtration catch-basins.
Buffering Adjacent Properties
- Green buffers a minimum of 50 feet wide will be densely planted along the property border on the Murcheson Place and Hotel Drive sides of the property. Similarly, a buffer a minimum of 35 feet wide will be on the border between the elementary school and adjacent properties on Ridgeway. Hundreds of new trees and shrubs will augment the density of these existing green buffers.
“We truly believe that our campus will be fully consistent with the City’s Comprehensive Plan and offers the best alternative for this site for the neighboring community and the City as a whole,” Zabotin said. “This includes clustering our development to preserve the natural conditions on the site, developing linkages between the public and private open spaces along the existing City corridor and preserving appropriate public access to open spaces on the Ridgeway property. We are committed to keeping the community fully informed as we move into the review process.”
