OceanFirst Bank Lends $51M for 55-Plus Community in Westchester County

Real estate developer AMS Acquisitions has secured $50.5 million of construction financing to build a 55-and-older multifamily community in Westchester County, Commercial Observer has learned. 

OceanFirst Bank supplied the loan for AMS’s planned 180-unit development at 800 East Main Street in Yorktown, N.Y., that will mark the fourth location for the developer’s Sylvan Woods active adult brand. AMS is redeveloping the former office complex into a 217,194-gross-square-foot residential building offering one- and two-bedroom rental units. 

Arrow Real Estate Advisors negotiated the debt with a team consisting of Morris Betesh, Alex Bailkin and Andrew Rosenberg. 

“Yorktown is an affluent market in Westchester County with strong demographics but a constrained supply of active adult products due to high barriers to entry for new development,” Betesh, founder and managing partner at Arrow Real Estate Advisors, said in a statement. 

Construction of the four-story Sylvan Woods Yonkers development is slated for completion in the second half of 2027. Planned amenities include a game room, multiple resident lounges, a fitness center, a spa, sauna rooms, a pool, a courtyard with barbeque area, sports courts and walking trails. 

Ari Mitnick, director of acquisitions for AMS, said in a statement the project will appeal to “downsizers” in the Westchester County region with its location and “resort-like lifestyle.”

George Destafney, chief commercial real estate officer at OceanFirst Bank, credited Brian Dobbins, the bank’s senior vice president, with leading the deal and “delivering timely and comprehensive financing for this project.”

Andrew Coen can be reached at acoen@commercialobserver.com.