Metro-North to sign big-dollar leases for concessions at White Plains, Bronxville stations

Metro-North has lured in two big-dollar vendors at above market rates to lease an Italian cafe, a coffee shop and a newsstand at stations along its busy Harlem Line, in Bronxville and White Plains, Newsday has learned.

In White Plains, Metro-North has a pending deal with Gateway Foods, a company that operates at high-traffic locations for NJ Transit and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, to lease a coffee stand and a newsstand on the first floor of the Ferris Avenue station.

Gateway, owned by Aziz Premji, successfully outbid 20 others by agreeing to a 10-year lease valued at nearly $600,000 to take over a 232-square-foot coffee concession, according to Metro-North's parent agency, the MTA. He expects to operate it as Tim Horton's, a Canadian-based chain of food stores.

A few steps away, Gateway also plans to take over Waxman News, a venerable family-operated business that's been at the same location for 32 years. Both leases are expected to be approved by the MTA board at its monthly meeting next week.

The news didn't come as a surprise to Gary Waxman, who has been working in the same spot since 1980, first with his father and then on his own for six years. In February, Waxman learned that Metro-North was looking to raise his rent as it tries to offer high-quality amenities at all its stations while bumping up its rental income.

Nonetheless, the decision signaled an end for Waxman, who has become something of a fixture at the station, greeting commuters by first name as they rush to catch their train.

"I could use a little vacation," Waxman said Friday. "How far do you take it? Things come to an end. He (Premji) has the people and the help. He'll do well."

In recent years, Waxman said he has struggled to make money. The number of newspapers he sells has dipped into the double digits as more commuters turn to tablets and iPads for their information.

Waxman said he hopes to chat with Premji about sticking around, maybe after he travels to Las Vegas to celebrate his 50th birthday.

"If he wants to keep me on, I'll do it for him," he said.

Gateway outbid 13 others for the newsstand by agreeing to a monthly rent of $5,280 for the first year of the ten-year deal. The rent will increase to nearly $6,900 during the life of the deal, tripling the $2,300 that Waxman has been paying on a month-to-month basis since his lease expired in 2009.

Meanwhile, the Bronxville station will get a new Italian cafe run by Manhattan restaurateur Guglielmo Mattiello.

Mattiello owns Via Emilia, serving cuisine inspired by Italy's Emilia-Romagna region, in the Flatiron District and lives near the Bronxville station.

"He proposes to operate a cafe that will offer freshly prepared Italian coffees and gourmet foods for commuters and locals to take out throughout the day," the MTA said.

Mattiello's company, Moe International, will fork over $42,000 for the first year of a ten-year deal valued at $302,000. The MTA estimates the fair market value for the space at $24,000. Mattiello's bid topped the next closest competitor, Global Java, by more than $20,000, MTA records show.

In recent years, Metro-North has been aggressive in renegotiating vendor leases as they're about to expire, while luring in deep-pocketed chains.

Last year at Grand Central Terminal, Metro-North took in a record $51.4 million in revenue that didn't come from ticket sales. About $24 million of that came from tenant rents, which increased by $3 million between 2011 and 2012.

Among the biggest names of the new tenants is the Apple Store, which laid claim to the terminal's East Balcony in December 2011.