Palisades Center Expansion To Be On November Ballot In Clarkstown

NEW CITY, NY—The Clarkstown Town Board has unanimously given the green light to a referendum that would allow voters to decide during the November general election if the Palisades Center can be altered.

According to The Journal News, residents will be asked if the restrictive covenant limiting Syracuse-based Pyramid Management Group from leasing the mall's fourth floor and adding a parking deck should be removed.

"I've been a proponent of this vote since I took office,"Councilman Donald Franchino told the newspaper. "The Palisades Center is, in this town, our number one employer, our number one taxpayer and the number one tourist attraction."

If voters approved, it would take away restrictions on the mall's indoor space, allow it to diversify outside the walls of its current building and potentially redevelop the property. It would not, however, allow residential construction, Clarkstown Town Supervisor George Hoehmann told the Westchester Journal News.

Pyramid and Clarkstown originally agreed to the restrictive covenant when the Palisades Center was built in the 1990s. The restrictive covenant prevents Pyramid from renovating or using 250,000 square feet on the mall’s fourth floor and building a parking deck.

In 2016, the owners of the Palisades Center sued the town in an attempt to erase the covenant so they can go straight to the planning board and skip a referendum process asking town residents to approve mall expansion. The owners have previously claimed that when the mall was first being being built, it was forced into accepting the restrictive covenant's terms.

Last year, Judge Nelson Roman, of U.S. District Court in White Plains, dismissed claims brought by the mega-mall's owner, according to The Journal News.

Read the full story in The Journal News at this link.

SEE ALSO:

• Palisades Center Owners Sue Clarkstown Over Expansion Plans