NY to Revoke Tax Breaks for Wal-Mart, Other Companies
State Warns Companies in Tax Deals [New York Times]
Officials alerted about 3,000 companies on Monday that they could lose the tax breaks they received under the state’s enterprise zone program because they had failed to create jobs or invest in their areas as promised.
Warning letters sent to the companies reflected the first significant auditing and enforcement effort in the two-decade history of the program, the Empire Zones. During that period, the program has transformed from an effort aimed at pockets of extreme urban poverty to an all-purpose business program offering tax breaks to companies statewide, costing taxpayers $3 billion since 2000 alone.
Nearly 10,000 businesses are certified to participate in the program, according to officials at the Empire State Development Corporation, the public benefit corporation that oversees the program. Three thousand of those businesses were issued letters indicating that they had met less than 60 percent of their job creation or investment goals. The companies on the list ranged from large corporations like Wal-Mart Stores and Lowe’s to small businesses like Zaro’s Bake Shop on Bruckner Boulevard in the Bronx and Jamaica Donuts in Queens.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Tuesday, July 31 | 0 comments | Permalink
Seabrook, NH. Sam’s Club Loses Gas Battle---Again
For the second time in four years, a Sam’s Club gas station proposal has run out of fuel. Wal-Mart this week scrapped plans to put a gas station in the parking lot of its Sam’s Club in Seabrook, New Hamsphire. The gas station would have been open only to Sam’s Club members. A similar proposal was denied in 2003. Wal-Mart needed a variance for the gas station, because the land their Club now sits on is industrially zoned, and does not allow gas stations. The site is also in an aquifer, and within 100 feet of a wetland. Gas and water don’t mix, and the company’s hearing before the Zoning Board did not go well. The ZBA asked Sam’s to return with more information about traffic, and about the impact of gasoline on the environment. Wal-Mart’s lawyer attempted to argue that now that the additive MTBE was no longer in gas, the proposal was not as environmentally hazardous. Their ZBA hearing went so badly, the company announced this week that instead of appearing a second time before the board, they chose to withdraw the plan instead. Case law in New Hampshire states that once you have been denied a variance, you can’t return unless your plans are significantly different. In this case, all Wal-Mart did was to move the gas station further south on their parking lot. In a July 20 letter sent to the Zoning Board of Adjustment, an attorney for the company gave no reason for the withdrawal. Seabrook has an ordinance that does not allow gas stations to be sited within 1,000 feet of one another, and there is a gas station already located within that distance. So Wal-Mart tried to move their station further away on their large site, but the ordinance measures distance property line to property line, so placement on the site needed a variance for the distance requirement as well. Local residents formed a Committee for the Environmental Protection of Seabrook to oppose the plan, and invited Sprawl-Busters to testify against the gas station in 2003 and 2007. “I hope the protest had something to do with it,” one resident told Seacoast Online after the withdrawal announcement. “I’m ecstatic. I’m glad they’re not going to put the little businesses out of business."The purpose of this letter is to formally advise you that Sam’s Real Estate Business Trust hereby withdraws both variance applications effective immediately,” said Wal-Mart’s letter to the Seabrook ZBA. Town Manager Scott Dunn announced Sam’s decision at the selectmen’s meeting on Wednesday morning. The ZBA made a brief statement Wednesday night. Officials do not expect Sam’s Club to come back a third time.
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Posted by Al Norman on Monday, July 30 | 0 comments | Permalink
MAINE SITE FIGHT: WAL-MART EN ROUTE
It’s Official: Wal-Mart Supercenter Is Coming [Ellsworth (Maine) American]
ELLSWORTH — It’s official: a 203,000-square-foot building on Myrick Street is going to be a Wal-Mart Supercenter.
Deed transfers for sales of land off Myrick Street between Wal-Mart Real Estate Business Trust and Darbro Inc. have been recorded in the Hancock County Registry of Deeds office.
Wal-Mart has also purchased land on Beckwith Hill from the Henry Howard Dunn Street and the Freda Mavis Dunn Trust.
The Massachusetts-based firm W/S Development Associates, which is developing the super Wal-Mart and an additional 300,000 square feet of retail businesses titled Acadia Crossing II, is listed in the deed transfers as well.
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Posted by Beth Gostanian on Thursday, July 26 | 0 comments | Permalink
New York: Lockport Back In The Crosshairs
Wal-Mart back on town’s docket [Lockport Union-Sun & Journal]
Wal-Mart is going back to the planning board.
Leslie M. Senglaub, an attorney for the retailer, sent a letter to town officials last week to ask for the project to be placed on the planning board’s Aug. 14 worksession agenda.
The renewal of the project comes six months after Wal-Mart pulled it off the table through a letter from Senglaub sent in January. In April, company spokesman Phil Serghini said the project was considered “dormant,” and Wal-Mart was looking at other sites in the area for a supercenter.
Serghini said the company has since restarted negotiations with General Growth Properties, who owns the old Lockport Mall that is the proposed site of the supercenter.
“We do not have a final agreement with General Growth but we are finalizing the details at this time,” Serghini said.
Wal-Mart has not commented on why the deal with General Growth fell through in the first place, although town officials have hypothesized the mall owner raised the price after the Dec. 31 deadline passed on their previous agreement.
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Posted by Corey Himrod on Wednesday, July 25 | 0 comments | Permalink
Pennsylvania: Wal-Mart Has A Stabilization Plan
Wal-Mart has new plan to stabilize Kilbuck site [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]
Wal-Mart has submitted a final site stabilization plan to the state for the landslide-prone River Pointe Plaza parcel in Kilbuck, and, at a public meeting next week, will review and discuss the remediation work that is scheduled to begin early next month.
The plan, which will be available for review beginning today at the state Department of Environmental Protection’s Southwest Region office on Herrs Island, does not address whether the retailer still plans to develop the 75-acre property along state Route 65/Ohio River Boulevard.
The DEP says monitors show earth is continuing to move slowly on the property. A September 2006 landslide there dumped 300,000 cubic yards of rock, dirt and debris onto the heavily traveled road below, closing it for two weeks and necessitating extensive roadway repairs. Three tracks of Norfolk Southern railroad were also closed for several days.
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Posted by Corey Himrod on Tuesday, July 24 | 0 comments | Permalink
Hinsdale, NH. Old Wal-Mart Must Be Torn Down
What happens to “old” Wal-Marts when the retailer casts them off? Hundreds of communities have found the answer: not much. According to Wal-Mart Realty, the company aggressively markets these “dark stores,” but Sprawl-Buster’s studies have shown that as many as one third of these vacated stores will remain empty for at least 3 years, and one-third of them are over 100,000 s.f.---making them very hard to retenant. Wal-Mart Realty, a division of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., is a real estate company offering development opportunities nationwide. “Lease space is available in vacated buildings ranging in size from less than 10,000 square feet to more than 100,000 square feet,” the company says. “ These vacated buildings, located in proven retail locations, are also available for purchase, and are often fully tenanted. We have outlots and excess property located adjacent to our Supercenters, Wal-Mart stores, Neighborhood Markets and Sam’s Clubs - prime retail business locations.
These available parcels are perfect for restaurant, retail, office or development uses, and are located in prime commercial locations throughout the country. This week, officials in the small town of Hinsdale, New Hampshire learned that their “old” 105,000 s.f. Wal-Mart discount store most likely will be torn down. Wal-Mart is proposing to build a 198,000 s.f. superstore roughly one mile away. The owner of the mall where the “old” discount stores now sits, told Hinsdale officials yesterday that she is close to signing a lease termination agreement with the company. She also said the building may have to be torn down and replaced with smaller buildings because no other owner could make full use of it. “The most important thing is lease termination, so I can start marketing the property and get other tenants in there,” the owner, Deborah George, told the Brattleboro Reformer. “I think, ultimately, that building is going to have to come down. I don’t think there’s anybody who could fully use the box without leaving half of it vacant.”
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Posted by Al Norman on Tuesday, July 24 | 0 comments | Permalink
NEW YORK SITE FIGHT: POTSDAM SITE DELAY
Potsdam Wal-Mart delay [News 10 Now (Syracuse, N.Y.)]
POTSDAM, N.Y.—Plans to begin construction on the new Wal-Mart in Potsdam have been delayed after the superstore requested sewer service from the Village of Potsdam.
The village normally annexes any land it provides with service, but Wal-Mart is a part of the Town of Potsdam. The superstore has offered to pay double the normal rate for service, plus a fee of $50,000 as long as the land isn’t annexed.
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Posted by Beth Gostanian on Thursday, July 19 | 0 comments | Permalink
PENNSYLVANIA SITE FIGHT: ADDRESSING THE REZONING ISSUE
Jefferson Hills Council to address rezoning issue [Pittsburgh (Pa.) Tribune-Review]
Jefferson Hills Council could decide next month whether to rezone 59 acres that could become the site of a Wal-Mart or another big-box store.
Council President Brian Militzer said members will discuss the issue at a special meeting 7 p.m. Aug. 8, before the regularly scheduled agenda meeting. The planning commission wanted more time to review documents, he said.
“This gives them more time to make a decision,” Militzer said.
Planners are expected to discuss the rezoning at 7:30 p.m. Monday in the borough building, 925 Old Clairton Road.
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Posted by Beth Gostanian on Thursday, July 19 | 0 comments | Permalink
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