Crystal Run seeks tax breaks for Monroe office
Crystal Run Healthcare is seeking tax breaks for “Big Monroe,” its code name for a proposed four-story, 128,000-square-foot office building on Route 17M in Monroe.
The medical practice is looking for a payment-in-lieu of taxes, or PILOT, arrangement from the Orange County Industrial Development Agency that would offer $4.4 million in savings over 10 years, along with sales and mortgage recording tax exemptions.
The building, estimated to cost $54 million, would bring more than 450 jobs to the area as well as 70 physicians. But Jim O”™Donnell, deputy county executive and executive director of the IDA, said it is unclear at this point if the doctors are separate or included in the 450 jobs. Columbia Development Cos. in Albany pitched the project Aug. 15 to the IDA.
Construction is scheduled to start in the spring and would take 16 to 18 months. O”™Donnell said crews would dig into a hill on the 17-acre site to accommodate the building.
Also at the meeting, the IDA granted Crystal Run tax breaks for a project on Rykowski Lane in Wallkill on which building is scheduled to start within 60 days. It approved a $1 million PILOT, plus sales and mortgage-recording tax breaks, for Crystal Run”™s 60,000-square-foot back-office operation. The $14.6 million project will keep 300 jobs and create 200 more.
“Crystal Run Healthcare has created 1,600 jobs in Orange County, they are one of our largest employers,” said Maureen Halahan, president and CEO of the Orange County Partnership. “Every doctor brings another 10 in support staff.”
O”™Donnell said it would be another couple of months till the IDA makes a decision on “Big Monroe”™s” tax breaks. But, he said, “They got a positive reaction to their presentation.”