They waved signs. They chanted. They testified.
“If not for my sisters – the nurses at Med Alliance, I would not be here today,” said Theresa Camp-Castro, partly paralyzed in 2006.
Med Alliance employees, patients and friends packed E. Fordham Road’s Candy Lounge on Thursday, February 4 to persuade Community Board 6 that clinic owner Sean Daneshvar offers superb, compassionate healthcare.
Mission accomplished.
But CB6 needs to address Daneshvar’s planned residential tower, not only the clinic he’s started to expand. Daneshvar wants CB6 to okay a rezone of 625 E. Fordham Road so he can build a ten-story tower on top of his planned three-story clinic and retail center.
The Westchester County businessman, who opened Med Alliance on Arthur Avenue more than 20 years ago, explained that his $13 million mixed-use development would bring more shoppers and more doctors to Belmont.
No one seems to begrudge Daneshvar a larger clinic. But some Belmont residents, shopkeepers and property owners, members of the new Belmont Business Improvement District included, worry that the development, at 13 stories, would cause traffic jams and dwarf the neighborhood.
“This would only bring more traffic,” said Belmont resident Maria Gerbasi, who sells real estate in Pelham Bay. “It would be a traffic nightmare.”
The Department of City Planning has embarked on a study of E. Fordham Road; it hopes to rezone several blocks together, from Southern Boulevard to Bathgate Avenue.
Daneshvar’s development and separate rezone would spoil that plan, delegates from the Bronx Quad – Fordham University, Montefiore Medical Center, the New York Botanical Garden and the Bronx Zoo – told CB6. The development would stand 138 to 148 feet.
“We welcome economic development,” Joe Muriana of Fordham University said. “But we support a contextual rezone.”
Daneshvar, a SUNY Maritime graduate and engineer, abandoned the construction industry to found Med Alliance in 1987. The clinic treated only 600 patients that year. It boasted 175 employees and 100,000 patient visits in 2009, Daneshvar told CB6.
Med Alliance moved to E. Fordham Road in 2003 and has expanded before. Daneshvar engaged the DCP more than three years ago and asked for a rezone in 2008, land use lawyer Margery Pearlmutter said.
When the DCP asked Daneshvar to help rezone several E. Fordham Road blocks he begged out for lack of funds, Pearlmutter added. Nonetheless, Daneshvar was surprised when, shortly before the development was to be certified, DCP began its E. Fordham Road study.
The planned tower would boast 58 market-rate residential units. Daneshvar did not need a rezone to start work on the expanded clinic. He hopes to add 10,000 square feet of retail at the front of the 28,000 square foot lot, on E. Fordham Road. Daneshvar’s architect has designed a garden to top the clinic and retail building, at the base of the tower.
Construction has already employed 200 workers and Daneshvar expects to hire 400 more. He thinks the expanded clinic and new shops will generate 200 permanent jobs. Daneshvar handed 10,000 petition signatures and 3,000 letters to CB6.
He alluded to President Barack Obama’s campaign motto and 2010 State of the Union emphasis on jobs.
“Can we create more jobs in the Bronx?” Daneshvar asked his patients and employees.
They thundered “Yes we can! Yes we can!”
A Med Alliance-funded environmental assessment found that the development would add only 35 cars to E. Fordham Road at peak hours, not nearly enough to trigger a further study mandated by DCP. Daneshvar plans to build an underground parking garage with 134 spots, 38 more than would be required.
But Belmont BID board chair Frank Franz, a neighborhood property owner, has concerns. Daneshvar’s parking garage would empty onto Hughes Avenue, a dead-end side street. Franz thinks cars headed in and out of the garage would lead to backups on E. Fordham Road. Plus, the rezone Daneshvar wants is light on parking regs, he said. Franz thinks that Daneshvar’s shops would add more than 35 cars to E. Fordham Road.
“So he has 10,000 petition signatures,” Franz said. “His petition calls for better healthcare and jobs. I’d sign a petition for better healthcare and jobs. He doesn’t want to address the traffic and parking issues.”
Daneshvar and Franz are old enemies; the property owner, who rents houses to Fordham University students, and the clinic owner have bumped heads before. On February 4 at the Candy Lounge, the latter named Franz the ringleader in a plot to squash needed development.
Franz is concerned that the residential tower will hurt his rental business and his Belmont BID ambitions, Daneshvar said. But Franz is a BID volunteer and has no personal stake in Daneshvar’s development, he countered.
CB6’s land use committee addressed the rezone on Monday, February 8. CB6 will vote on the rezone on Wednesday, February 10 at the Belmont Library, 610 E. 186th Street.
Reach reporter Daniel Beekman at 718 742-3383 or dbeekman@cnglocal.com
