As anticipated, Buffalo-based Savarino Companies has applied for financial assistance from the Genesee County Economic Development Center to help offset the costs of environmental cleanup and redevelopment of the long-vacant Della Penna property on Ellicott Street in the City of Batavia.
The GCEDC board will consider the application for the $17.6 million rehabilitation project at its meeting tomorrow.
Savarino is planning to replace most of the structures on the property and replace them with a 64,000-square-foot development that will include apartments, office space and a brewery and restaurant.
Once completed, there will be 47 market-rate apartments on the border of Downtown Batavia and businesses employing at least 60 full-time workers.
The terms of the application were negotiated by the city and GCEDC during the process of attracting a developer for the brownfield project and include $897,293 in sales tax abatement on materials during construction, relief on $128,232 in mortgage taxes and $537,398 in property taxes.
Savarino has already announced an anchor tenant for the Ellicott Station project, Resurgence Brewing Company of Buffalo, which plans to use the facility to increase production of a new product, a sour beer, as well as serve on tap its full line of beers that have proven popular in Buffalo.
The project is part of the Batavia Pathway to Prosperity (BP2) initiative, which is a cooperative endeavor between the city, GCEDC, Batavia Development Corp., City Schools and Genesee County.
BP2 was created to offer a tax abatement known as a PIF (PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes incremental financing), which is the first of its kind in New York. Half of the PIF payments will be used to help fund future brownfield redevelopment in Batavia, with the other half being returned to the original taxing jurisdictions.
The Batavia Opportunity Area (the brownfield redevelopment area) covers 366 acres in the city's core and contains five strategic redevelopment sites.
well good luck to Buffalo
well good luck to Buffalo-based Savarino Companies in your new venture. Go right ahead and use your own cash, as far as the taxpayer investment NO. Can you hear me? NO . I as a taxpayer do not want to be any part of your company. The property on Ellicott st. can remain vacant till the cows come home, better yet take my tax dollars and turn it into a park so everybody can use it.