to read the full story - Downtown New Rochelle

BOB ROZYCKI
Looking up
Ralph DiBart is
directing efforts to
revitalize downtown
New Rochelle
BY JOHN GOLDEN
jgolden@westfairinc.com
T
o commercial landlords and business owners, Ralph DiBart is a familiar presence and effective partner in
downtown New Rochelle. Some say they
could not have opened or renovated their
businesses and properties without the help
of DiBart and the organization he heads.
DiBart is executive director of the
New Rochelle Downtown Business
Improvement District, which includes
some 300 businesses in its area. In its
11-year history, the BID has emerged as a
reaper of state grants to restore New York’s
aging urban buildings and a successful
recruiter of private investment in what had
been a decaying downtown.
“It’s a recession,” said DiBart, leading
a recent tour of downtown buildings and
commercial blocks in New Rochelle where
exterior and interior improvements are
completed or under way and where illegally
operating nightclubs were forced to close
and are being replaced by retail stores and
a soon-to-open restaurant. “And we have
property owners investing on Main Street.
This is a beehive of investment by small
and mid-sized businesses. This is how economic development is done.”
Signs of progress
At 2 Division St., a contracting crew
hired by the building’s owners was busy
converting two upper floors into artist
work studios with assistance from the
BID’s Artist Spaces program, an effort to
fill long-vacant upper floors in downtown
buildings and at the same time develop a
downtown arts community that attracts
more shoppers and more business investment. The program has helped created
more than 40 artist studios.
Around the corner at 537-539 Main
St., the same owners are readying a vacant
storefront for occupancy by the adjoining
New Rochelle Furniture store, which will
double its space in the expansion. The BID
helped arrange lease negotiations between
the tenant and the landlord.
DiBart also is working with the building owners to remove unsightly security
gates, his ongoing effort at downtown businesses. The owners have signed on with
the BID’s facade improvements program,
which provides matching New York State
Main Street grants of up to $50,000 to
landlords who complete improvements to
their buildings.
The BID has assisted in changing the
appearance and uncovering or restoring
architectural features of more than 75
storefronts through the façade program,
DiBart said. “We’ve had pretty good luck
in having this program ongoing for about
seven years.”
That “good luck” was extended this
month when the New Rochelle BID was
awarded a $500,000 Main Street grant for
the facade improvements program. The
state to date has awarded the nonprofit BID
a total of $900,000 in Main Street grants.
The new funding is expected to assist pri-
REPRINTED FROM THE ISSUE OF DECEMBER 26, 2011
Bob Rozycki
Some of the improved facades at the corner of South Division and Main streets.
Continued
vate owners in improving more than 50
storefronts.
DiBart said those grants are used to try
to leverage private investment in downtown properties “and to bring in new businesses with it. We have leveraged millions
of dollars above the amount of the grant
and have helped bring in new businesses
with the grants.”
‘Incredible entrepreneurs’
The BID director steered his tour
guests to Baby’s Outlet, a 5,400-square-foot
children’s furniture store that opened in
September at 514-518 Main St., a restored
Art Deco building long occupied by the
former Palace Shoe Store. The building
later housed one of the city’s more notorious nightclubs.
Trimming bills
An energy-efficiency program
launched last spring by the New Rochelle
Downtown Business Improvement
District and Consolidated Edison saved
participating businesses $93,461 yearly
on their electric bills. Businesses reduced
their energy use by 623,069 kilowatt
hours a year.
The historic building stood vacant
when developer Joseph Simone of Simone
Development Cos. bought it as part of a
property assemblage marked for mixeduse redevelopment. With the recession and
credit freeze, the developer abandoned
those plans.
Working with Simone and a real
estate broker, DiBart arranged to have
New Rochelle business owners Chong
Su and Swan Cho buy the Palace building and an adjacent vacant property.
Immigrants to Queens from South Korea
who first opened a fruit and grocery
store in downtown Port Chester, the
Chos had operated their La Casa de Bebe
store in New Rochelle for eight years.
The couple’s business was about to be
displaced by a CVS Pharmacy at another
downtown location. The move to Main
Street was a success for DiBart and the
BID’s business-retention initiative.
“Swan and Chong are incredible entrepreneurs,” said DiBart. “We want more
people like them on Main Street.”
A new entrepreneur in New Rochelle,
Rhonda Hamilton, plans a spring opening for her jewelry business, Just Funki
Handcrafted Wearable Art, in newly builtout storefront space in the Avalon on the
Sound residential tower on Division Street.
Operating from a home studio in
Yonkers, she was first contacted by an
Avalon leasing agent about bringing her
business to New Rochelle. “They thought I
would be a good fit because of the artistic
nature” of her business in a downtown
that is building a reputation and rebuilding vacant spaces as a center for working
artists.
Hamilton contacted DiBart at the BID
office. “They have been really phenomenal.
Basically he held my hand through the process,” she said.
A $7,000 facade improvements grant
from the BID paid for storefront awnings.
DiBart introduced her to consultants at
Monroe College’s King Graduate School,
who are working with her to design software for her business and draft a business plan. The college and the BID are
helping her secure a business loan from
Community Capital Resources, an alternative source of financing for small-business
owners likely to be turned down by bank
lenders.
DiBart and staff at Monroe College
also are helping her develop a related business that Hamilton plans to open in New
Rochelle.
“The great thing about Ralph DiBart is
he’s not sitting at his desk,” said Hamilton.
“He’s actually out there on foot talking to
businesses.”