Rail yard eyed for development

All eyes were on Lehman College last week when Mayor Bill de Blasio arrived to deliver his annual State of the City address on Feb. 4. His speech came shortly after Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. announced that a 19-acre train yard adjacent to the college was one of the ripest spots in the borough for new housing development.

A February report from the borough president’s office singled out 13 total acres on that site for future mixed-use development. Known as Concourse Yard, it is located between Jerome and Paul avenues and 198th and 205th streets. The MTA currently operates it as a site for the storage, cleaning and maintenance of B, D and 4 Trains. The yard consists of three parcels of land, described as the North, Center and South Yards. The smaller northern parcel is being left out of the project, with the BP’s office saying it would be too expensive to develop. Three acres on the South Yard are proposed for an expansion of Lehman College.

Charles Moerdler, who sits on the board of the MTA and chairs Community Board 8’s Land Use Committee, said the project has his total support. He added that it could serve area needs without dislocating existing businesses or homes.

“It provides a tabula rasa to do sound planning because you have a large land mass and you can plan properly. It works,” he said. “It provides a way in which this can be done now rather than waiting four or five years waiting for a plan.”

According to the report, the rail yard falls under a variety of zoning codes. The Center Yard is currently zoned R6 and C8-2 while the South Yard is zoned R6 and M1-1. The report estimates that rezoning the entire lot as R6 could ultimately provide up to 2 million square feet worth of land for development.

Mr. Moerdler explained that a few measures must be put in place in order to dictate how new development could be zoned, comparing it to the similar project taking place at the Hudson Yards in Manhattan.