Albee Square Mall/City Point Subsidy News
September 15,
2009: The New York City Capital Resource Corporation (CRC), which is part
of EDC, held a board meeting in which a majority of board members
voted to approve Recovery Zone Facility Bond financing for the City Point
project in Downtown Brooklyn.
The deal was passed despite inconsistencies in the number of jobs the project is expected to create, and no binding agreements on local hiring, living wage, or provision of affordable space for small businesses displaced from the Albee Square Mall.
September 10, 2009: Albee Square
Mall was demolished in 2007 in order to make way for a new project called
City Point. The $3.2 million subsidy package approved for City Point in 2007
fell through due to difficulty in securing financing because of economic
recession. City Point’s developer, Albee LLC, has applied for another round
of subsidies enabled by the federal stimulus bill—Recovery Zone Facility
Bonds.
At a public hearing on September 10th, 2009 the New York City Capital
Resources Corporation (CRC) heard public testimony on the use of $20 million
in tax-free Recovery Zone Facility Bonds to jumpstart the stalled City Point
development. Among a range of concerns, advocates testified that, as the
project stands, there are not enough guarantees in place that local residents
will get new jobs created by the project, and that they will be paid a living
wage.
FUREE and the Pratt Center for Community Development would also like to see at least 10% of space in the new facility be set aside and made affordable for businesses displaced by the demolition of the Albee Square Mall.
CRC's formal
Cost/Benefit Analysis
provides information about the project, including the number of jobs it is
expected to generate.
Here is a sample of testimony from the September 10th hearing:
Bettina Damiani,
Project Director, Good Jobs New York
Families United for Racial and Economic Equality (FUREE)
Diana Smith, FUREE
Alyssa Katz, Pratt Center for Community Development
May, 2007:
A
team of developers is seeking to purchase the leasehold interest in The
Gallery at Fulton Street, formerly known as the Albee Square Mall, and
intends to replace the shopping center with a 1.6 million square foot
residential tower that would also include 125,000 square feet of office space
and about 300,000 square feet of retail designed for an anchor tenant. The
New York City Industrial Development Authority recently approved $3.2 million
in tax breaks to subsidize the office component of the project, despite
protests from neighborhood residents and displaced businesses.
Read Good Jobs New York’s testimony from the IDA hearing.
The new developers are purchasing the leasehold interest from Joseph Sitt of Thor Equities and seek a new lease agreement with the city (the city owns the land). A summary of the proposed agreement indicates that the new owners would owe the city “payments in-lieu-of taxes” (PILOTs) that incorporate tax incentives available under the Industrial and Commercial Incentives Program and the 421-a Program. The new lease would also accelerate the developers’ option to purchase the property and changes the sales price to $20 million in 25 years.
On May 25th, 2007, the Mayor's Office of Contract Services held a public hearing is in regard to the proposed amendments to this lease.
Read testimony from:
Pratt Center for Community Development
Families United for Racial and Economic Equality (Samantha Imperatrice, Randy Leigh, Ricardo Richardson, Eugene Manson, Pat Senior, Felicia Roldan, Gerald Adams)