Written by Michael Moran on November 23, 2009 – 6:23 am
New York is losing Starwood Hotel’s global headquarters and its 800 jobs because its economic development incentives cannot compete with Connecticuts.
LoHud.com’s Ben Rubin reports that the company will move just 13 miles from Westchester to Stamford, CT.
He writes: “It wasn’t even close. The efforts of state and county agencies in the past two years to keep Starwood Hotels’ global headquarters on this side of the border could not match Connecticut’s offer.
“We have tried for two years to make this happen and fill the gap,” said Salvatore J. Carrera, Westchester County’s director of real estate and economic development. “And the gap was $40 million.”
Wednesday’s announcement that Starwood Hotels & Resorts
Worldwide Inc. would move from White Plains to Stamford, Conn., reinforced the view of many real estate and development experts that New York stood little chance in an incentives fight with Connecticut.
“New York state and Westchester don’t have the programs and incentives to compete with the state of Connecticut, plain and simple,” said William V. Cuddy Jr., an executive vice president at CB Richard Ellis Inc. “No one should be shocked if this is the first of subsequent relocations.”