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March 1, 2011
Uncertainty at Empire State Development Corp. Continues
Gotham Gazette
by David King
Cuomo has outlined a number of proposals that he says will get the organization back on track toward creating jobs and attracting and fostering new businesses. Past that, it is unclear if Adams or even the Cuomo administration knows what, exactly, they are going to do to turn around the corporation, which has been seen in recent years as ineffective, scattered and bloated.
Not to mention crooked.
Neither Cuomo nor officials at the Empire State Development Corp. would comment for this story.
...To appreciate why changes to the ESDC matter so much you have to understand what the ESDC has done up until this point, but many experts say that, too, is hard to quantify.
The ESDC was created in 1968 primarily to oversee the construction of subsidized housing projects. As an authority, the ESDC can issue bonds to fund major projects without voter approval, and it also has the ability to use eminent domain. That has been a hot topic because of the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn.
...The ESDC has come under major criticism in its role for Atlantic Yards. Homeowners and property rights advocates say the organization justified the project and seized to benefit one major company rather than the many small businesses that have been forced to relocate to make way for the project.
In its other role -- overseeing programs created by the legislature -- the ESDC has faced major criticism for its handling of the Empire Zones, a program developed to attract companies to upstate. It isn't clear that any of the major tax breaks and funds it handed out led to any significant job creation. Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, who was staunchly anti-big government, famously received $3 million in tax breaks from the state but only created 25 jobs.
NoLandGrab: And Bruce Ratner's deal makes Paladino's look almost legit.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Gotham Gazette on ESDC: questions about job creation, city focus, and what exactly it did in service to Atlantic Yards
There are a couple of curious passages in a Gotham Gazette overview article today headlined Uncertainty at Empire State Development Corp. Continues.
First, everyone agrees that the ESDC should focus on job creation, and the debate is whether the gubernatorial-controlled agency should focus on small business or large projects--and whether new CEO Kenneth Adams, former CEO of the Business Council, is partial to the latter.
Atlantic Yards, one of the ESDC's signature projects, is not primarily about job creation, however. Rather, it's about the ESDC helping get a project done, acceding to changes in the plan--from a promised 10,000 office jobs to a perhaps 1340 jobs, 30% of them new, in one delayed tower.
The article states:
[Andrew Rudnick, CEO of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership] does believe, though, that the ESDC needs to refocus its values and core mission. "The ESDC needs new criteria. Most economic development experts would tell you that they no longer use the standard of how many jobs are created, which is what the ESDC uses. Instead, you look at quality of job, investment opportunities, the scope of a project and the potential for using green technology," he said.
With Atlantic Yards, I don't think they're measuring it by job creation.
Posted by eric at March 1, 2011 11:12 AM