White Plains, NY – The Westchester County Board of Legislators voted on Monday, April 3, 2017, to approve a 99-year lease of 60 acres of county-owned land to a developer to enable the development of a $1.2 billion Biotech industry in Valhalla, New York. The project called “North 60” has been in the planning and review stages for over a year.
During the negotiations, Legislator Lyndon Williams (D-Mount Vernon) advocated for and drafted language that would benefit students from Westchester Community College (WCC) and surrounding colleges and Minority and Women-Owned Businesses. The legislation enables greater opportunities for students of WCC and other colleges to obtain internships and to pursue careers in bioscience technology. In addition, Williams incorporated language that allowed greater minority and women-owned businesses to participate during the construction phase of this project. At Williams’ urging, the county obtained a written commitment from the developer to work with the county’s economic development department on a plan for affirmative outreach to Minority and Women-Owned Businesses.
Williams said, “…this is the largest economic development project in Westchester County and I want to make sure that future generations of Westchester Community College students and surrounding colleges will educationally and economically benefit from this project. Also, no economic development project would be worthy of approval unless we focus on job creation and inclusion of minority and women-owned businesses in the construction and other phases of the development”
The development will consist of the following components built in 3 phases:
● A total of 2.3 million a square foot of biotech research space
● Medical offices totaling 400,000 square feet
● A 100,000 square feet hotel; consisting of 100 rooms
● Ground level commercial space consisting of 114,000 square feet
● Children’s living Science Center consisting of 34,000 square feet
The project is expected to break ground in two to three years and the entire project will be completed in about 10 -15 years.
