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February 9, 2010
Stung By Costco, East Harlem Officials Hope Jobs will Come from Other Stores at East River Plaza
DNAinfo
by Jon Schuppe
Another must-read article for counter-parties to Community Benefits Agreements (legally binding or not) with Forest City Ratner Companies.
Still stinging from layoffs at the neighborhood’s new Costco, public officials are shifting their focus on getting local residents hired at the other big-box stores that will be opening at East River Plaza.
Best Buy is scheduled to open March, and Target and Marshalls are expected to follow in July. Officials want to avoid a repeat of what happened last month, when Costco surprised them with news it was laying off scores of workers. The announcement came two months after the wholesale outlet opened with promises of jobs for people who lived nearby.
In the end, 132 people lost their jobs—not the 160 the company orignally reported. Of the 279 workers who remain, less than half are from the neighborhood, officials said.
That's considerably less than the 60 percent goal outlined in a “memorandum of understanding” with the shopping mall’s developer. The agreement, between Community Board 11 and Tiago, a partnership of Forest City Ratner Companies and Blumenfeld Development Group, is not legally binding. But officials say it’s key to maintaining a healthy relationship with the surrounding community.
...The layoffs were a blow to East Harlem because local officials gave the developer approval to have overnight deliveries in return for assurances that the stores at East River Plaza would hire people who live in the neighborhood, which has a 17 percent unemployment rate.
NoLandGrab: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice — well, that's a "Community Benefits Agreement."
Posted by eric at February 9, 2010 11:07 PM