Irondequoit, N.Y. – The owner of Medley Centre is seeking $250 million in sales tax incremental financing for the redevelopment of the mall.
Scott Congel has met with state economic development officials and state lawmakers to secure support. He has drafted legislation that would support the financing. According to people who have seen the proposal and talked to Congel, all state sales tax collected at Medley over a 30 year period would be used to pay off $250 million in construction bonds.
“Problem is, we’ve never done it before in the history of the state and if the sales tax isn’t sufficient to pay off the bonds, the State of New York through the general fund of the budget would be required to pay them,” said Assemblyman Joe Morelle.
“This is unprecedented. I don’t know of any other private developer who would benefit in this way,” said Sen. James Alesi. “That’s a quarter of a billion dollars of tax money that comes from your pockets….Every other private developer in New York State will say, ‘You did it there. Why don’t you give us the sales tax money for this project?’”
“We are hard at work on a number of potential financing models for the pubic purpose infrastructure components, including one, which involves an incremental sales tax financing plan. But that model is only one of several we are exploring,” said Congel’s company SRC Development, in a statement.
