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Albee Square Mall Subsidy News
A
team of developers is seeking to purchase the leasehold interest in The
Gallery at Fulton Street, formerly known as the Albee Square Mall, and
intends to replace the shopping center with a 1.6 million square foot
residential tower that would also include 125,000 square feet of office space
and about 300,000 square feet of retail designed for an anchor tenant. The
New York City Industrial Development Authority recently approved $3.2 million
in tax breaks to subsidize the office component of the project, despite
protests from neighborhood residents and displaced businesses.
Read Good Jobs New York’s testimony from the IDA hearing.
The new developers are
purchasing the leasehold interest from Joseph Sitt of Thor Equities and
seek a new lease agreement with the city (the city owns the land). A
summary of the proposed agreement indicates that the new owners would
owe the city “payments in-lieu-of taxes” (PILOTs) that incorporate tax
incentives available under the Industrial and Commercial Incentives
Program and the 421-a Program. The new lease would also accelerate the
developers’ option to purchase the property and changes the sales price
to $20 million in 25 years.
On
May 25th, 2007, the Mayor's Office of Contract Services held
a public hearing is in regard to the proposed amendments to this lease.
Read testimony from:
•
Good Jobs New York
•
South Brooklyn Legal
Services
•
Pratt Center for Community
Development
•
Families United for Racial and Economic
Equality (Samantha
Imperatrice, Randy Leigh,
Ricardo Richardson,
Eugene Manson,
Pat Senior,
Felicia Roldan,
Gerald Adams)