Empire Zone created for Chinatown

Governor George Pataki, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver announced on Tuesday the creation of a new Empire Zone in Chinatown designed to boost the area economy, create business incentives, and lower the property tax burden on taxpayers within the zone. Two additional Empire Zones, in Livingston and Nassau counties, were also announced.

The new Chinatown Empire Zone will serve to help the Lower Manhattan neighborhood create more commercial space, aid in the development of its office district, and encourage partnerships for marketing and workforce development initiatives. In addition, the new zone paves the way for the development of a waterfront park for the community and will give the Chinatown garment industry a much needed boost.

"In  today's highly competitive global marketplace, New York's Empire Zones have  served as a powerful tool in helping us stay one step ahead in our efforts to attract new businesses and create new jobs," Pataki said in a statement. "This successful program will better be able to help bring new companies and new jobs to those areas and help existing companies expand, create, and retain jobs."

In a statement issued soon after the announcement was made, Mayor Michael Bloomberg added his support. "I'm pleased to see that this effort, which was years in the making and represents countless hours of hard work, has finally come to fruition," he said. "Over the past four years, the more than 1,200 businesses in the city's Empire Zones have created over 23,000 jobs, and in no place will the benefits of a new Empire Zone have a more far-reaching impact than in Chinatown and the Lower East Side, whose businesses have suffered more than their fair share of hardship in recent years."

Benefits for businesses operating within the new zone include tax reduction credits, real property tax credits, sales tax exemptions, wage tax credits, and utility rate reductions. Taken together, the zone benefits can, in some cases, reduce a company's tax liability to zero.