“Shovel ready” does not make the headlines much these days.
Burt B. Houseworth, however, has not forgotten the term.
“The difficulty is ”“ now and always has been ”“ landing sites that are shovel ready,” Houseworth said. “It takes two to three years to get through the process.”
One solution: “I”™d like to see the county make it fiscally possible for low-cost loans designed to make parcels shovel ready.” One problem: “There isn”™t enough money to go around. Our difficulties are everyone”™s difficulties today.”
Houseworth is CEO of the Putnam County Industrial Development Agency (IDA).
He does not fund projects. He does not dig foundations. He does not draw from the taxpayer”™s tithe (applicants float the IDA via fees). Rather, the IDA uses a spreadsheet of incentives designed to keep extant businesses in place and to “help attract clean, environmentally sensitive manufacturing and industrial interests.”
“Burt and his team are really dedicated people; we work very closely with them,” said Albert Salvatico, president of Mineola-based Jaral Properties Inc., which plans to build a 120-room hotel by John Simpson Road and Fair Street in Carmel. “We almost broke ground three years ago. Then the recession hit.”
The Jaral hotel would fill a need, Salvatico said. “Now, people can go to Fishkill, which has good, respectable hotels” ”“ a cluster of 10 hotels flank Interstate 84 and Route 9 in Fishkill in Dutchess County ”“ “or you can go to Danbury. If you”™re from Putnam County trying to conduct business, it does not enhance your business reputation when someone has to go to another county to stay.”
It is the sort of synergy Houseworth, too, seeks: “In my opinion, I”™d love to attract and keep high-tech, research and financial industry firms. But you can”™t do that without a strong bedroom community and that needs strong consumer goods. We”™ve been succeeding, but on a marginal basis.”
Jaral”™s hotel plan is undergoing a new feasibility study. “We continue to work closely with the IDA ”“ they”™re really good people,” Salvatico said. Jaral owns and manages two hotels on Long Island”™s East End, a Holiday Inn Hotel and Suites and a Hotel Indigo, into which the company just pumped $10 million in renovations.
One casualty of the delay for Jaral: The catering hall will be on hold when construction begins, as early as 3Q, according to Houseworth.
The Putnam IDA tool kit includes: real property tax abatements that scale assessments across 10 years; sales tax exemptions on equipment and materials specific to a project; mortgage recording tax (1.05 percent) exemption; and tax-exempt industrial revenue bonds.
“We’re dedicated to trying to help the county improve its economic standing and also toward helping control the spiraling tax burden by bringing in beneficial developers,” Houseworth said.
A healthy roster of clients ”“ unnamed for reasons of confidentiality ”“ garnered IDA help in February: an aircraft parts manufacturer seeking 12,000 square feet with 16-foot ceilings; a franchise owner seeking 5,000 square feet to 6,000 square feet and three acres on Route 22; a fire department services company seeking 10,000 square feet to 12,000 square feet with 20-foot ceilings; a high-tech plastics outfit that needs 12,000 square feet to 15,000 square feet on one floor with 600 amps of power and 14-foot ceilings and an additional 2,500 square feet of office space; a beverage company looking to lease 40,000 square feet; and a metallic film-laminates company seeking to expand.
The IDA is also working as bond counsel for a troika of development projects with the potential to add 1.7 million square feet of space to market: Stateline Retail Center in Southeast; Patterson Crossing on the Patterson-Kent border, with 15 percent in Kent; and Union Place in Mahopac. Houseworth had recently heard from some 50 residents across four meetings on those developments and said:
“People have a right to support or challenge what they consider to be correct development. Opponents will have their say and they will be heard. But we in the IDA are charged with advancing the economic base.”
Laserlike and professional across a broad-ranging interview, Houseworth ticked off examples of IDA successes:
Ӣ Ace-Endico, a food-service provider to the likes of Applebees and Yankee Stadium and which provides 150 in-county jobs with sales (2006) of $75 million;
Ӣ Clancy Moving Systems in Patterson, which has branched into rare book storage to attract business from universities and the United Nations;
Ӣ Ohio-based Williams Advanced Materials will become Materion beginning March 8, but will remain in Southeast employing 70 in the manufacture of high-tech films;
Ӣ DeCicco Family Markets, which recently opened its first Hudson Valley location in Southeast; and
Ӣ Brewster Plastics, which molds products for corporate giants that include Prestone, IBM, Black & Decker and Lego.
The downside of corporate moving looms above Stoneleigh Avenue in Carmel: Watson Pharmaceuticals, once home to 600 employees treading 111,000 square feet and now home to nine with the site on the market for $5,650,000.
Houseworth tries to short-circuit stories like Watson Pharmaceutical via outreach:
“We as a practice visit major businesses in the county to meet with CEOs and COOs,” he said. “We provide additional information and provide a red-carpet business conduit by working with Dutchess Community College, Westchester Community College, the chambers of commerce and the Department of Labor.”
Putnam is famously the holding tank for New York City”™s water: “I”™m told that accounts for as much as 20 percent of our land mass,” Houseworth said. “Development is severely ”“ and properly ”“ restricted.” While his background is corporate and entrepreneurial, Houseworth, who retired in 1996 and “couldn”™t stand it,” trained in environmental planning at Syracuse University for the position.
In June 2010, Putnam and all other New York IDAs lost the Empire Zone benefits as incentives. They have been replaced by the Excelsior program, which is funded at about half the EZ levels.
“We’re glad to have some form of replacement in the form of the Excelsior plan,” Houseworth said. “However, we are concerned with differences in administering the plan and the fact the funds are listed on a first-come, first-served basis favoring shovel ready projects. It leaves us at odds because we don”™t have that many shovel ready projects.”
Houseworth has teamed with Kevin Bailey, chairman of the IDA board of directors, president of the taxpayer-funded Dutchess County Economic Development Corp. and “our expert in real estate, government affairs and bonding” about reinventing EZ on a case-by-case basis. Houseworth refers to Bailey as “the man who gets things done.” Together, they have penned a letter to County Executive Paul J. Eldridge seeking to offer the more generous EZ benefits at specific target sites in the county. “This would be to spur regionally significant projects.”
