Company Ziff-Davis Publishing Company
Date Announced 11/14/1997
Site 63 Madison Ave at 28th St.
Total Subsidy $4.3 million

Amount tied to job creation

???
Promised Job Creation 1,332
Promised Job Retention 738
Length of Contract 22 years
Competing Sites San Francisco or Boston
Conditions Benefits are tied exclusively to job growth.
Notes The $4.3 million in sales tax exemptions in this deal are tied to job growth and are contingent on technology publisher Ziff-Davis creating 1,332 jobs over the next 22 years. The city also agreed to limit Ziff-Davis' property taxes at 63 Madison, an extra $5 million value over the 22-year period, according to Ziff-Davis' real estate broker. The company never searched for a headquarters location outside New York, according to then-Deputy Mayor Peter Powers, who asserted, however that without the subsidies, Ziff-Davis would have moved some jobs to San Francisco or Boston.

When Ziff-Davis executives started to evaluate a possible move out of Manhattan, they discovered the importance of a Manhattan location. They found a "major portion" of their hard-to-replace staff lives in or near the city.

Corporate Notes Owned by Softbank Corporation of Japan. Publisher of PC Magazine, Computer Shopper and Yahoo! Internet Life.
Critics
A note on sources -- or why many of these profiles appear incomplete. They are. Good Jobs New York compiled the numbers in these profiles from press releases and news accounts of the deals. Unfortunately, more detailed information on these subsidies is very difficult to obtain -- even though it should be readily available to the public. In many cases, neither the company nor the city nor state released certain information, particularly the terms of the agreement, i.e., the conditions which the company had to meet in order to receive the subsidy. It should also be noted that the value of the subsidy may not end up being equal to the value estimated at the time of the agreement. And it should not be assumed that the actual number of jobs retained and created will be the same as the numbers predicted.

Because the public deserves easy access to information about how taxpayer dollars are being spent, Good Jobs New York will update these profiles as we uncover more information.

Good Jobs New York  - May 25, 2001