USA Today: Officials break ground for Lowe’s store in Yorktown

YORKTOWN – A new Lowe’s is coming to town.

The highly-anticipated 120,000 square foot home improvement store will anchor a new shopping destination at 3200 Old Crompond Road and is expected to be finished by November 2018.

“We’re all excited about having Lowe’s come to Westchester,” said County Executive Rob Astorino, one of several officials who spoke during a groundbreaking Thursday. He said officials who helped spur the redevelopment along understand “economic development is important.”

It’s not just the 200 jobs that will be created at the Lowe’s and other businesses or the 400 construction jobs, Astorino said, but it’s another reason to shop in the county.

The project, by Breslin Realty Development Corp., is set to include three other buildings, which could potentially be two restaurants and a bank. No new businesses have been announced.

“It’s required a lot of patience, as do all my projects, but it’s been worth the wait for the residents of the region to have a great home improvement store on the property that has become an eye sore for many years,” Wilbur Breslin, chief executive of developer Breslin Realty Development Corp., said in a news release.

The Lowe’s will go in an area of Yorktown Heights with easy access to the parkway and where some other businesses have come along, including a steakhouse just down the road.

It will be the second Lowe’s in Westchester County. The first, a 70,000-square-foot store at Westchester’s Ridge Hill shopping center in Yonkers, held a grand opening in July.

It took about nine years to reach this point. Initially, it was a Costco proposed for the Crompond Road site that received approvals, but Costco decided not to go there. So Breslin Realty reached an agreement with Lowe’s.

At the groundbreaking, Breslin said he doesn’t mind spending money when it betters a project’s quality. But he said this one took years and cost millions, without putting a shovel in the ground, due largely to delays at the state level. He said something should be done to make that process easier.

Town Supervisor Michael Grace praised the developer, citing how Breslin Realty not only hung in there to get approvals, but also worked with the town to preserve and relocate a historic barn that dates back hundreds of years.

“The type of corporate partners, the type of corporate neighbors they’re gong to make, is exemplary,” Grace said.

State Sen. Terrence Murphy, R-Yorktown, recalled that he was on the Town Board when Breslin Realty began work to redevelop the long-dormant site.

Murphy praised Breslin “for sticking with us” despite the time and expense. “We are here today, nine years later, to actually put a shovel in the ground.”