The request by Empire Merchants North, a Kingston-based company formerly known as Colony Liquor & Wine Distributors, to put on hold a meeting with city officials earlier this month might indicate that it will be leaving the city. That”™s a big letdown for all the economic development leaders who”™ve worked hard to keep the company in the locale. Â
The liquor company, which has been situated in Kingston since the days of Prohibition and currently employs 200, had announced plans for a $10 million expansion, following a merger with another distributor, in 2007. Signs that it had other intentions first surfaced last fall, when it became known that the company was being wooed by a California-based real estate firm that owned a vacant warehouse building in Selkirk, which would have been big enough to accommodate the expansion.
To keep Empire Merchants from leaving the city, the Ulster County Industrial Development Agency passed a resolution that would have exempted the company from paying the prevailing wage requirement on its new construction, which would have been funded by IDA loans. The exemption was crafted specifically to apply to existing companies in the county with 100 employees or more who had options to leave the county. Ulster County is one of three counties in the state with the prevailing wage requirement. In applying for the exemption, “they provided a lot of confidential information, which we used in making the decision,” said March Gallagher, chairman of the Ulster County IDA. Â
In addition to the exemption, the city of Kingston had prepared a “payment in lieu of taxes” as an additional incentive to stay put. According to Kingston Mayor James Sottile, the PILOT agreement would have exempted the company form paying taxes on the new building for 15 years as well as on its existing building for five years, representing a savings of more than $3 million.
Instead, Empire Merchants asked the Mayor to put everything on hold. “I”™m disappointed,” Sottile said. The departure of Empire Merchants North “is going to have an adverse effect on our community. It will have a devastating effect on local businesses. I know in my heart I did everything I could to put the best deal on the table.”
Although the information could not be confirmed, it seems likely the company is headed not to Selkirk but to Greene County, which has also been an aggressive suitor. Tom Connelly, assistant executive director of the Town of Bethlehem IDA, which is the jurisdiction for Selkirk, said his office had not been approached by Empire Merchants North. He said New York Realty had discussed IDA incentives for bringing the company in to the abandoned warehouse, which might also have qualified for Empire Zone status.
“We said ”˜yes”™ and were delighted to have this project in our town,” since it would have added 300 jobs, said Connelly. But “we never heard from them. We heard they”™re going south of here, to Green County.”
Calls to Empire Merchants North and the Greene County IDA weren”™t returned. However, Lance Matteson, president of the Ulster County Development Corp., said he”™d heard similar news. He said there was a small advantage to the company relocating to Catskill, as is rumored, rather than farther upstate to Selkirk: the Kingston-based employees would be able to more easily commute to their jobs.
