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February 15, 2011
Panasonic's NJ tax-break static could boost NY
Nearly 1,000 corporate jobs possibly in play for downtown Brooklyn if a $102-million incentives package to keep company's American headquarters in Garden State short-circuits.
Crain's NY Business
by Daniel Massey
How's this for irony — corporate-welfare king Bruce Ratner could benefit from a government not handing out subsidies.
New York City officials hoping to lure Panasonic Corp. and its 950 North American corporate headquarters jobs from New Jersey may benefit from a dispute playing out across the Hudson River.
Officials at commercial real estate giant Hartz Mountain are challenging $102.4 million in subsidies awarded last month to the consumer electronics firm to help it move to Newark from Secaucus. Hartz executives argue that the law only allows the subsidies to be used for jobs that would be new to the state. They also say public officials overstated the economic benefits to the move, and that the meeting at which the vote on the subsidy took place was not properly publicized.
Hartz owns Panasonic's Secaucus headquarters, a three-building site with a lease that runs through March 2013.
...Big Apple officials have been trying to sell Panasonic on two sites in downtown Brooklyn owned by developer Forest City Ratner—MetroTech Center and Atlantic Yards—according to sources familiar with the situation. A spokesman for Forest City did not immediately have a comment.
NoLandGrab: And for those of you who like a side of irony with your irony, how 'bout the fact that Hartz Mountain is challenging the subsidy package on the basis of the jobs not being new, while Bruce Ratner is totally abusing the EB-5 visa program intended (and required) to — you guessed it — create new jobs.
Posted by eric at February 15, 2011 11:19 AM