January 4-10, 2019 Your Neighborhood — Your News® 75 cents
SERVING THROGGS NECK, PELHAM BAY, COUNTRY CLUB, CITY ISLAND, WESTCHESTER SQUARE, MORRIS PARK, VAN NEST, PELHAM PARKWAY, CASTLE HILL, ALLERTON
I-95 North improvements to end bottleneck
Blondell Commons rezoning meeting
Vol. 39 No. 01 www.bxtimes.com
The Season Of Giving Back
STATE REVEALS
‘BACKUP’ PLAN
Continued on Page 57
Continued on Page 57
BY ALEX MITCHELL
Th developers of a major,
large scale, mixed-use project
anticipated to arrive at
Westchester Square’s 1340
Blondell Avenue, revealed additional
details during a public
hearing.
Called Blondell Commons,
the proposed 9-story development
with 228 units and
ground fl oor retail space, will
contain 211,500 total square
feet of fl oor area and a frontage
of 215 feet.
Representatives from
Blondell Equities, LLC presented
the building’s unit
breakdown and amenities
during a Uniform Land Use
Review Process hearing at
the Bronx County Building
on Thursday, December 28.
The residential units, encompassing
189,000 square of
the building’s total size, will
be offered as 51 studio units
at an average 450 square feet
apiece, 80 one-bedroom units
at an average 620 square feet
per unit, 57 two-bedroom
units, averaging 820 square
feet, and 40 three-bedroom
units, with just over 1,200 average
square feet per apartment.
In accordance with the
city’s Mandatory Inclusionary
Housing guidelines, 68 of
the units will be set aside for
tenants earning 80% of the
area’s median income (AMI)
and the developers plan to set
aside a number of units for
homeless veterans.
The building will also include
a 225 spot parking garage,
of which 95 will be open
for public use at what developers
called ‘a competitive fee,’
along with 114 spaces for bicycle
parking.
The project’s other amenities
include a laundry room
of 15 washers and 10 dryers
BY ALEX MITCHELL
Many a north bound traveller
has spent too much time negotiating
the roadway where
the Bruckner Expressway
meets the NYS Thruway. Now,
a project to reduce that corridor’s
congestion has received
the go ahead and by 2022 the
highway nightmare should be
‘a thing of the past’.
Since 2015, Assemblyman
Michael Benedetto, working
with the NYS Department of
Transportation, has successfully
launched a $33 million
traffi c mitigation improvement
plan along I-95 between
Country Club Road, Pelham
Parkway and the Hutchinson
River Parkway.
Included in the plan is a
new exit into Co-op City from
the Hutch that will allow Coop
City bound drivers to stay
on the northbound parkway,
exiting onto the Hutchinson
River Parkway West service
road in Section 5.
Contracts will be awarded
by year’s end with work commencing
by the spring of 2020.
Major components of the
project will include: adding a
new travel lane north of exit
8B, which is currently an
‘Exit Only’ lane to City Island
and Orchard Beach; improvements
to the current I-95 and
Pelham Parkway ramp confi
gurations; as well as the new
exit ramp on the Hutch to Coop
City.
“Most of the changes are
directed at alleviating a lot
of the I-95 (north) corridor
backup that exist beginning
around the Country Club
Road exit and extends past
Pelham Parkway,” said Benedetto,
adding he applauded the
NYSDOT plan for its “creativity
and thinking outside of the
box.”
Besides the volume of traffi
c on these roadways that necessitate
the new measures,
NYSDOT believes that the
amount of entrances and exits
on the I-95 north roadway
over a short distance is a major
factor contributing to the
traffi c slow down, indicated
Benedetto.
The existing I-95 entrances
at Pelham Bay Station and
Pelham Parkway will be realigned
to reduce the number
of vehicular and pedestrian
crossovers that cause the
northbound bottlenecks.
In addition, traffi c travelling
east on Pelham Parkway
will now have direct access to
In honor of the holiday season, the Albanian American Open Hand
Association and Pelham Parkway Neighborhood Association cohosted
a food drive on Friday, December 28 at 2141 Holland Avenue.
Mire Preldakaj (l) helped her daughter Annabella Nilaj (r)
pack a bag with delicious treats. See more photos in next week’s
paper. Photo by Miriam Quin
/www.bxtimes.com
/www.bxtimes.com