Greenburgh reaches out to attract businesses
The town of Greenburgh has launched a program designed to help attract new businesses to the community while helping commercial landlords and real estate agents as well as the town”™s residents. The effort is anchored by the new website at the address greenburghedo.com that provides a centralized location to find available business sites, economic development resources and employment opportunities with private business and the town itself.
Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner explains that the new website has real estate listings covering vacant commercial properties in Greenburgh”™s key business districts: Central Avenue, Route 119, Saw Mill River Road; and East Hartsdale Avenue. It also contains a lot of other information designed to help businesses.
The website provides links to information on assistance the town of Greenburgh offers to local businesses, county business programs and incentives, New York state incentive programs and information on employment tax credits. It provides workforce development information while also allowing the submission of economic development ideas to the Greenburgh Planning Department.
“We hired an economic development consultant, Grella Partnership Strategies based in Atlanta, and this was one of the recommendations that they made,” Feiner told the Business Journal. “I think this is going to be very useful. Brokers, realtors and landlords will be able to highlight vacancies. It will be very easy for people who are interested in locating here to take a look at properties quickly and see what”™s available. There”™s job information. There”™s information on incentives the county and state are giving small businesses, so I see this as a real positive.”
Feiner said it”™s important for the town to track progress or lack of progress in attracting new businesses and filling vacant retail spaces.
“Prospects can browse the website and see where the vacancies are and take a look at the photos of the buildings and narrow down their searches,” Feiner said. “This makes it easy for a business that is possibly looking for space to say, ”˜Oh, this is really great, why don”™t I go here.”™ If Greenburgh is doing this and other communities are not doing this it gives us a competitive advantage.”
Feiner said that the town plans to reach out to the commercial brokers, landlords and realtors to provide fresh information on a regular basis and continue to make the website a valuable resource.
“We already spent about $30,000 on this, developing the website, and I guess there will be some costs, but at the same time if you fill up the vacancies we could make it up and I think it”™s important for the town to have as few vacancies as possible,” Feiner said. He noted that commercial real estate that is fully rented produces more tax revenue and is less likely to be the subject of a grievance seeking to reduce property taxes.
“Vacancies are being filled now and we”™re meeting with people who have expressed interest in coming to town,” Feiner said. “Expressing interest doesn”™t mean that somebody”™s going to actually sign a lease, but I feel that there”™s growing interest and if businesses feel that the town is really going to go out of its way to help them be successful then word will spread. If we get good word of mouth comments, that will be helpful and help us get more businesses.”
Feiner expressed confidence that Greenburgh has the ability to attract new businesses and pointed to the March 14 opening of a UPS Store at 656 Central Park Ave., while adding that he had just met with a business interested in a site at the town”™s Four Corners intersection where Hartsdale Avenue crosses Central Park Avenue.
“There”™s room for optimism but it”™s really going to take a lot of work from the town where everybody has to partner in this and do this together,” Feiner said.