By Carol P. Bartold, Senior Reporter

Jul. 5, 2017:  If all goes well with construction, said Tuckahoe Mayor Steve Ecklond, the Marriott Springhill Suites hotel at 109-125 Marbledale Road should be finished by August of 2018. Approved on a 3-2 vote by the Tuckahoe Planning Board in October of 2016, the project has raised concerns in Tuckahoe as well as Bronxville because the hotel will sit on the site of an abandoned marble quarry that was used as a commercial landfill dump.

The $31 million, 91,000-square-foot-project will contain a 163-room hotel, a 6,400-square-foot restaurant, and 208 parking spaces. According to Ecklond, the hotel could generate as much as $150,000 in room tax revenue annually for the village. "Room tax is real money that can be used to purchase an asset," Ecklond said. "This is cash coming in that can be devoted to infrastructure."

Construction on the hotel is progressing and, according to Ecklond, drilling work for pilings that will support the building is over half completed. Upon completion, steel for the building will be erected.

"The goal is to have the entire building up, with the roof, by late fall," Ecklond said. That will allow interior work to proceed when winter weather sets in.

Because the construction site was designated as a Brownfield site, any redevelopment or reuse of the property could be complicated by the presence or potential presence of hazardous contaminants in soil and groundwater.

"The fear is that the pile driving will smash up more toxins," said Bronxville resident Betsy Harding. "The water used to create the pressure for the pile driving will become contaminated." She added that there is disagreement about where that contaminated water will go. Harding and other residents have expressed concern that the water will migrate to Bronxville.

Ecklond noted that all remedial cleanup work on the site is complete. The site will be capped with cement, asphalt, and topsoil.

Because of concerns that toxins could migrate to Bronxville, the Bronxville Board of Trustees has hired a consultant to review site reports and data from soil and groundwater tests conducted at The Bronxville School campus.

A group of concerned Tuckahoe residents filed an Article 78 petition in November of 2016 against the planning board, building inspector, New York State Departments of Environmental Conservation and Health, and Bilwin Development Affiliates LLC seeking a preliminary injunction to halt remediation efforts on the site. The petition also sought to annul the site plan approval and the negative state environmental quality review act (SEQRA) declaration. New York State Supreme Court Judge Larry J. Schwartz denied the petition in May of 2017 and a final ruling is pending.

The Marbledale Road Environmental Coalition gathered over 2,700 signatures in 2016 on an online petition calling for the full environmental review of the hotel project that the negative SEQRA declaration deemed unnecessary.

Bronxville resident Gretchen Pingel has requested sewer maps to determine if Tuckahoe and Bronxville wastewater systems are connected. Any contaminated groundwater or storm water run-off that might enter the Bronxville sewer system, she noted, could ultimately seep through soil and house foundations. "And of course," she said, "if contaminated water is released into the Bronx River, it will negatively impact the fragile river ecosystem."

Pictured here:  The construction site for the Marriott Hotel site in Tuckahoe. 

Photos by N. Bower