By Mike Pettinella
For Video News Service
The Genesee County Economic Development Center on Thursday afternoon voted to accept an application from a Batavia developer’s company that is seeking to construct 20 more adult housing units on Lake Street (Route 19) in the Village of Le Roy.
The board, which threw its financial support behind the Ivy Village Corp. project when it started in August 2022, advanced the application from Eric Biscaro at its meeting on Med-Tech Drive.
The company is seeking an estimated 865,440 in tax breaks from the industrial development agency, broken down as $168,000 in sales tax exemption, $28,000 in mortgage tax exemption and $669,440 in property tax abatement (based on the incremental increase in assessed value through a 20-year Payment in Lieu of Taxes agreement).
Biscaro, who developed the Clinton Crossings and Clinton Square patio home sites in Batavia, said he plans to build 10 more market rate senior housing duplexes (20 units) to go with the 20 units that already have been constructed at 143 Lake St. Investment into the second phase is pegged at $3.5 million.
The resolution approved by the GCEDC board now will go to a public hearing at a location in Le Roy at a time to be determined.
The second phase of the project – Biscaro hopes to add a third phase of 20 more units – will add 25,000 square feet to the 35,000 square feet already developed.
The existing units are either 1,200 square feet with a one-car garage and one-and-a-half bathrooms or 1,440 square feet with a two-car garage and two bathrooms. Biscaro said nine of the existing units are occupied and another two “are spoken for.”
Biscaro – owner of Armor Building Supply in Batavia and FABCO roofing and siding manufacturing in Hornell — said the second phase is not as involved as the first.
“We had to put in a 200-foot entrance to where the buildings are plus a pump station, maintenance garage and storage building when he started,” Biscaro said, adding he expects all of the first part to be done by mid- to late-summer.’
GCEDC officials said the project is estimated to generate $2.7 million in local fiscal impacts, including payroll and tax revenues, for an estimated $4 local benefit for every $1 of requested incentives.
The GCEDC board also approved the final resolution for Appletree Acres, LLC, to expand its existing 50,000-square-foot warehouse in the Apple Tree Acres corporate park in Bergen. The company is looking to add 20,000 square feet of space and is seeking abatements in the form of $58,000 (sales tax) and $213,336 (property tax).
GCEDC officials estimate an impact of $3.1 million to the local economy, for approximately $14 local benefit for every $1 of requested incentives.
I’m just curious to know if the expansion will proceed if the developer is not granted any tax incentives.