WASHINGTON — Buffalo businessman Howard Zemsky told a House subcommittee Wednesday that the building his company renovated just east of downtown is proof that the federal Renewal Communities program is working.

"Today our Larkin at Exchange building is home to approximately 2,000 employees working for over 30 companies and organizations," Zemsky, managing partner of Larkin Development, told the House Ways and Means subcommittee on select revenue measures.

"The federal governments investment, coupled with our own private investment, has resulted in a re-emerging and reinvigorated neighborhood, which was the goal of the renewal community program," he added.

Rep. Brian Higgins—a Buffalo Democrat whose city office is in the Larkin at Exchange building — invited Zemsky to testify before the subcommittee to promote the Renewal Communities program.

The program, which offers tax credits to companies that add jobs in areas suffering from chronic high unemployment, is set to expire at the end of this year.

But Higgins and his colleagues on the subcommittee are working to develop legislation that would keep the program going.

"The Renewal Communities program cannot expire because the promise of the program has yet to be realized," Higgins said. "There are many examples, most that I do not have enough time to mention today, where professionals in Buffalo, Lackawanna and Jamestown have been able to grow their business because of these benefits."

Higgins is a co-sponsor of a bill by Rep. Artur Davis that would renew and improve both the Renewal Communities program and the similar Empowerment Zones effort.

Noting that First Niagara Bank recently announced plans to locate its headquarters in the Larkin at Exchange building, Zemsky said its essential that Congress act to make sure more such growth occurs in urban neighborhoods.

"Now is not the time to end this important program but to extend it so that our community and all the renewal communities will continue to have the opportunity to realize the benefits and the promise of revitalization that is the intent of this program," Zemsky said.