Tag: economic development

Oct 3

2022

How Amazon plays the leverage game

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Cathy Rayhill was floored when she heard Amazon wanted to build a three-million-square-foot warehouse on Grand Island. “It was completely inappropriate for our community, that was my first thought,” she said. Rayhill envisioned Amazon’s trucks wearing down the island’s two sets of bridges to the point where the town would have to close them and raise taxes to fix them. Not only could the warehouse operation put the island’s infrastructure at risk, it could harm the environment — all for 1,000 jobs that would not pay much above the minimum wage.  Rayhill and her neighbors were outraged and began organizing[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Sep 15

2022

Big subsidies for luxury apartments

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State and local governments eagerly offering tax subsidies to a luxury, waterfront apartment project sounds like something out of a developer’s fantasy. But that’s exactly what’s happening in North Tonawanda. The Niagara County Industrial Development Agency on Wednesday unanimously approved — without debate — a $7.2 million subsidy package for a developer building 110 apartments along the Niagara River marketed as “luxurious living in elegant surroundings.” The project is a third phase of developer VisoneCo’s aims for the section of River Road just north of Tonawanda Island. The first, which is finished, features apartments, townhomes and commercial space. The second,[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Sep 12

2022

Harborcenter fails to meet its jobs goal

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When state and county officials agreed nearly a decade ago to give the Buffalo Sabres and the Pegula family $57 million in tax breaks for downtown’s Harborcenter, the money came with a promise. Jobs. In its application for public assistance, a subsidiary of Pegula Sports and Entertainment promised 205 full-time and 160 part-time jobs. In a subsequent press release, the Sabres upped the ante to 350 full-time positions. Those jobs were supposed to be in exchange for $37 million in tax breaks from the Erie County Industrial Development Agency and $20 million from the state to remediate the brownfield the[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Sep 6

2022

Podcast: Reporting the Amazon story

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On Tuesday, Investigative Post reported on the huge subsidy package Amazon is receiving to build a warehouse in Niagara County. Amazon will receive $124 million in tax breaks from the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency, plus state tax credits of at least $2 million. In exchange, Amazon will employ 1,000 people, most earning $15 an hour. Reporter Dale Shoemaker sat down with Garrett Looker, host of our podcast series, to discuss the reporting. You can watch the interview via our YouTube channel or listen to it as a podcast. Our intent is to publish a podcast a week. Coming up[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Sep 2

2022

Inside Amazon’s massive subsidy in Niagara

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Robert Taylor, a lifelong Niagara County resident, is thinking about moving south. Probably Florida. But Taylor isn’t chasing the warm weather and low property taxes that have drawn tens of thousands of other Northerners to the South. Rather, he’s running away from something.  Amazon.  The online retail giant plans to open a 3-million-square-foot warehouse less than a mile from his Packard Road home in the Town of Niagara. Amazon plans to employ 1,000 people at the warehouse and hundreds of cars and trucks will travel to and from the facility daily. The warehouse will be a “first mile” distribution center[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Aug 24

2022

Subsidies for South Buffalo pot farm

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Updated: 1:46 p.m. A pot growing operation in South Buffalo has received two major subsidies from economic development agencies. The first, in January, came from the New York Power Authority, which approved an allocation of 2.9 megawatts of discounted hydropower. That equates to $3.5 million in savings over 10 years, based on 2021 energy prices, a NYPA spokesman told Investigative Post. The second subsidy came Wednesday from the Erie County Industrial Development Agency, which approved tax breaks worth $3.1 million over 15 years.  It’s the first subsidy the IDA has awarded to a marijuana producer and the second largest tax-break[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Aug 10

2022

Big tax breaks for Amazon in Niagara County

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It took the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency less than a minute Wednesday to approve $124 million in tax breaks for Amazon to bring 1,000 warehouse jobs to the Town of Niagara. Amazon, one of the world’s largest and wealthiest companies, plans to open a 3-million-square-foot warehouse along Lockport Road, which will be a “first mile” distribution center where bulk shipments of goods will arrive and be sorted and packed for shipment to other Amazon facilities in the region. The goods will make their way to customers from those other facilities. Despite hearing concerns from residents about the $15-per-hour jobs[...]

Posted 3 years ago

May 11

2022

Yet another failing Niagara Falls project

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A lot of big ideas have been floated for revitalizing the City of Niagara Falls and most of them have ended the same way: in disappointment.  Residents are still waiting for Niagara Falls Redevelopment — a company owned by New York City real estate developer Howard Milstein — to do something with the 140 acres it acquired downtown as part of a 1997 Master Redevelopment Agreement with the city.  The most-recent effort to renovate and reopen the Hotel Niagara, an iconic 1920s-era building on Rainbow Boulevard that has been vacant for more than a decade, stalled last year amid financing[...]

Posted 3 years ago
Investigative Post