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IDA committee to review Delaware North tax breaks

The complicated jigsaw puzzle of the process for a new Delaware North Companies corporate headquarters will start falling into place this afternoon.

Developer Uniland wants to build a new headquarters complex for Delaware North at Delaware and Chippewa. The latest plan calls for a four-story parking ramp, a hotel and the corporate offices.

While Uniland will own the building, both parties are asking for tax breaks.

The Policy Committee of the ECIDA meets at 2 this afternoon in the Burchfield Penney Art Center to listen to Delaware North's request for an $800,000 sales tax break for fitting out the building for use as a corporate headquarters. An approval sends it to a full IDA meeting on Monday.

Deputy County Executive Richard Tobe says it costs to fit out offices.

"Not quite $18 million in size. We use a fairly common factor that says about half of a buildout would be items that would be subject to the sales tax," Tobe said.

"The other biggest part is labor costs for which there is no sales tax. So, we do an estimate as to what a buildout will be and we do it in the same way for all projects."

Tobe says Uniland has now submitted its request for subsidies for the actual construction and the IDA staff is still working its way through the application to see what benefits the developer would get.

Because it's technically a new application, the agency says there will be a public hearing November 25, a Policy Committee meeting December 2, and a full IDA board meeting to look at the plan December 16.
 

Mike Desmond is one of Western New York’s most experienced reporters, having spent nearly a half-century covering the region for newspapers, television stations and public radio. He has been with WBFO and its predecessor, WNED-AM, since 1988. As a reporter for WBFO, he has covered literally thousands of stories involving education, science, business, the environment and many other issues. Mike has been a long-time theater reviewer for a variety of publications and was formerly a part-time reporter for The New York Times.