Tax breaks approved for Falls snow park
10-year deal for year-round operation described as standard for commercial project
WHEATFIELD — A proposed year-round snow park in downtown Niagara Falls with a tubing hill and a synthetic ice rink will receive a 10- year break on property taxes as a result of an agreement approved Wednesday by the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency.
The agency’s board voted, 7-0, to approve a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement with Snow Park LLC, a company operated by Joseph Anderson, who runs the Smokin’ Joe’s gasoline chain and other businesses in the Niagara Falls area.
Anderson’s company will receive a 10-year break on property taxes for the $5.2 million project, to be located on a 2.8-acre site at Main and First streets.
During a morning meeting in the Niagara County Center for Economic Development, Henry M. Sloma, the agency’s chairman, described the project as “exciting.”
A representative of the company could not be reached Wednesday, but in February the company said it expects to open the park in June.
The company plans to hire 20 full-time, 27 part-time and 19 seasonal employees within two years, according to information it supplied to the agency.
The largest category of costs for the project is $2.2 million for machinery and equipment. Site work will cost $360,000, with an additional $800,000 in construction costs, according to information given to the agency.
The agreement contains the standard terms for a commercial project, said Lawrence D. Witul, the agency’s assistant director.
In the first year of the agreement, the company will receive a 75 percent abatement on its property taxes. In each following year, tax payments will increase by 5 percent, Witul said.
In other matters:
• The agency staff reported that a plan to open a tire-recycling plant in the abandoned Union Carbide factory in Niagara Falls will receive a $1 million grant from the state Dormitory Authority. The funding, which will be passed through the IDA to Santarosa Holdings, will be used for building “cleanup and renovation.”
• A $5 million expansion plan by a graphite products company received a boost from a series of sales, mortgage and property tax breaks. Metaullics Systems, a division of Pyrotek located in the former Carborundum Co. plant on Cory Road in Wheatfield, plans to add 11 jobs by the time the project is completed in the fall. At an upcoming meeting, the IDA also will consider a final bond resolution that would aid the company.
• Todd Erection Corp. of Pendleton will receive sales tax breaks on an equipment purchase of about $200,000. In exchange, the company plans to rehire four workers it recently laid off.
• The IDA board granted a six-month extension of sales tax breaks to office space owned by CO7 Holdings, a company run by Calamar, a Wheatfield development firm. CO7 Holdings is located on Forest Parkway in Wheatfield.
• The board approved a $91,000 loan to Hoot Mechanical & Electrical of Lockport, which will help pay for a 750- square-foot addition to its Short Street property.
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