By Eric Wolf Schoen
Let’s start off by saying Ridge Hill and the City of Yonkers are in drastic need of a Walmart. The company build a concept store in White Plains which was not successful. So whatever side of the NYS Thruway you put it on, Walmart will do very well in Yonkers.
Secondly, what is taking the Target at Cross County so long to be finished. That’s the $20 million question I am asked everyday. It was supposed to open in the spring, and it looks like they are still far from finished. Target, Walmart, Stew Leonard’s, Costco, Home Depot why is it that Yonkers, the 3Rd largest city in New York takes so long to get what every major city has had for years! (Editorial Note: my first Target trip was in California around 1995. That’s like almost 30 years ago!) We are hoping that our Target is a Super Target with in store deli, bakery and lots of other good things!
Ridge Hill. When I heard the initial mixture of stores coming there I thought it a bit strange. Plop a Lord & Taylor in the middle? Though my favorite store has gone out of business, you could never walk into Lord and Taylor and see more than a few people shopping. Particularly with their Eastchester store 15 minutes away, there was no need for a Lord and Taylor at Ridge Hill. But I must admit I got some pretty good bargains there. But Lord and Taylor is the least of Ridge Hills problems.
Orvis? How many people in Yonkers really professionally fish, the clientele the store was supposed to cater to. One of the first stores to go out of business was the Brooks Brothers concept store. This was a new venture for the company. People in Yonkers like what they are familiar with. A regular Brooks Brothers is sorely missing in southern WESTCHESTER and North Bronx, and I think it would have done well.
Between Dick’s and REI you had too many stores catering to sportsman. Add LL BEAN and the urban mall had way too many sports related stores for a not so sports related clientele. The stores to occupy the mall were not chosen carefully.
Now let’s chat about individual parts of the mall. Those parking lots! Surprised no one got seriously injured the space for passing cars so narrow. The WestMed lot? It’s simply a speedway with cars zooming and backing up simply a disaster waiting to happen. When you go to WestMed your bills for tests and procedures could potentially be thousands of dollars, yet they have the nerve to ask you to pay to park. Cheesecake Factory for a time was the only store validating parking as it was apparently put in their lease.
The new owners of Ridge Hill brag about the new parking payment system using apps to pay for parking. Believe it or not, many people do not know how to use the apps to pay which slows the whole line of cars down. Also, they have an APPLE store, so many people are coming with non working phones so they can’t use an app on their broken phone. Many elderly people and younger people I witnessed panicked when they saw they had to pay by app and no one was there to help them. ‘We got rid of all the physical hardware in all our parking decks and put in apps so you can pay once and move from deck to deck throughout the property,” a company spokesman said. Dumb move. Just move your car and keep your ticket on the windshield.
When Ridge Hill opened, they had a trolley that transported people from one end of the property to the other. The trolley was big, and no one was ever in it. It has sat in the parking lot across from WestMed abandoned for years. What they need is a smaller vehicle, 8-12 seater easy to get into to transport people around the mall. This way people can park and not worry about moving their cars. Getting in and out of your car and moving it from lot to lot requires a lot of walking. The smaller vehicle will allow people to avoid jumping in and out of their cars which can be annoying.
Handicap parking at Ridge Hill faces another problem that exists throughout Yonkers. People parking in handicapped designated spaces without the necessary permits. The City of Yonkers can send police officers in to ticket illegally parked cars but for some reason does not do it. The ticket fees, money that goes to city coffers is somewhere in the $150-$200 range. A police officer or parking enforcement agent can easily ticket 5 to 10 cars a day (I see that many illegal parked cars in one lot) bringing the city a minimum of $1000 a day. State laws even allow specially trained citizens to ticket cars and bring in revenue. Why Yonkers refuses this moneymaker I will never figure out.
There needs to be more handicapped spots on the roads in and around Ridge Hill. There is plenty of room for them when you take away the spots reserved for ‘special vehicles’ which are often occupied by individuals with OFFICIAL placards that have families, not ‘officials’ come out of the car. This happens all the time and individuals using placards illegally should be fined and towed with their owners getting points on their license.
Ridge Hill is just that, a hill you must climb in your car to reach it. I don’t see how they can change the access roads without major blasting and construction.
The movie theater also poses numerous problems including but not limited to access to it over a breezy bridge where you can lose your balance. The theater is in desperate need of repair which was put off during the pandemic. Why should I go Ridge Hill when Cross County and White Plains have been updated with comfortable reclining seats?
There are other flaws at Ridge Hill which I hope they correct when they makes changes to the mall. In the interim send your ideas how to update Ridge Hill to the management office, 1 Ridge Hill Blvd., Yonkers 10710 or via phone at 914-207-2900. And wish those involved all the best in turning the facility around to make it first class.
Editorial Note: While we are chatting retail, many have complained about the parking at Dollar Tree on South Broadway and McLean Avenue and the inability to find a place to park because of abandoned cars and cars illegally parked. After my visit there on Sunday with no parking available at either store especially the big lot on South Broadway I spoke to the powers that be to address the situation.
Listen to Eric Schoen on the Westchester Rising Radio Show Thursday’s from 10-11 a.m. On WVOX 1460 AM, go to WVOX.com and click the arrow to listen to the live stream or download the WVOX app from the App Store free of charge. Reach him at thistooisyonkers@aol.com.
