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Restrictions On Resale Apply To New Developer, An Arm Of Atlantic Realty Companies
By Tina Traster
The developer who bought the HNA Palisades Center at 334 Route 9W in Palisades in 2024 sold the campus to a Woodbridge, NJ-based development company for $27 million.
The new plan for the former IBM facility largely mirrors the original redevelopment with 342 townhouses, but the new investor has told the town it intends to raze the convention center because it’s too far gone. The fate of the hotel has not been decided, but the developer has indicated if it can’t be re-used it will be demolished. Demolition of these iconic structures will not add to the housing plan, according to the buyer, Orangetown Palisades Renewal Center JV, LLC, which is associated with Atlantic Realty Companies.
The original development team last July agreed to a restrictive covenant to restrain from “flipping the property” to a “nonprofit” entity for two years after the 2submission of a completed redevelopment plan. The developer had also agreed to provide the Town of Orangetown with a right of first refusal for five years.
The buyer, the “successor developer,” has agreed to be bound by these restrictions.
The Town has approved an amended Memorandum of Understanding that accepts Orangetown Palisades Renewal Center JV, LLC as the “successor developer.”
Last July, after a protracted drama that spanned years, REVEIL LLC, a Delaware Limited Liability Company, transferred its interest to Palisades Renewal Center LLC, which purchased the property for $26.3 million from SL Green, the New York REIT that gained the property after the Chinese-government-backed HNA lost it in a bankruptcy case.
The town board also agreed to settle five years of tax certiorari challenges filed by HNA from 2019 to 2023. The back taxes on the property are nearly $9 million, which would be paid to Rockland County at closing this week. The agreement contemplates refunds back to SL Green, specifically: $1.8 million from the school district, $670,000 from the town, and $192,000 from Rockland County.
On May 6, the town approved an amended Memorandum of Understanding that allowed the new company to redevelop the property.
Originally, REVEIL, which included partners Mark Kitching and James Pelayo, envisioned an updated hotel and conference center, glamping, event spaces, a working farm, test kitchens, co-working, and 20 to 30 townhouses. Then, REVEIL enlarged its team, with investors Joseph Santullo, owner of Systems2000Plumbing in New York City, and Pegah Ebrahimi, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at FPV Ventures, a $450M early-stage fund that backs and serves mission-driven founders. Their housing proposal increased by ten times.
REVEIL’s plan had included refurbishing the 425,000 square-foot, 200-room hotel, restaurant, spa, wellness center, bar and lounge, collaborative workspaces, a coffee shop, gourmet market and “creative spaces”, as well as trails and walkways.
It remains unclear which, if any of these amenities, will be included in the development going forward.
There has been a lot riding on this development, particularly for Orangetown officials who inserted themselves in the evolution of the property’s next use. Worries about who will own the property and how it will be used date back to the town’s initial endeavor to make itself a player in the redevelopment of the property after HNA’s sale to a Brooklyn-based Hasidic group fell through. Ultimately HNA shuttered the now-distressed property during the pandemic.
In 2021, the town played a leading role in tapping a developer, shortly after the former Nyack College campus was sold to a yeshiva group. During that transition, the Village of South Nyack dissolved, partly worried about the cost of future litigation. Orangetown’s assertive move to step in and help engineer the HNA property’s fate stemmed from worries that the property would be turned over to a “nonprofit,” group, an oft repeated phrase that many take to mean a religious use.
During the protracted search for a developer, the town boiled down the pool to three contestants. Two were local: Financier Billy Procida of Piermont had proposed 180 townhouses and a hotel. Kenny said Procida’s plan was not chosen because of disparaging remarks Procida made about HNA publicly. She also said his offer of $18 million was not something HNA was going to accept. Rick Cook of Palisades, a notable New York architect, envisioned an ambitious spread of movie studios and 430 housing units. At the time, the community voiced opposition to the property becoming a large residential community.
