Food Exchange gets $1.9M in tax relief
Operation in former Woolworth store has been in planning stages since 2015
The Ulster County Industrial Development Agency on Wednesday approved about $1.9 million in tax breaks for the planned Kingston Food Exchange in the former Woolworth store at 311 Wall St. in Uptown Kingston.
The agency board’s action covers separate applications by building owner 311 Partners LLC and planned tenant BBG Ventures.
“I think one of the impressive things for me ... was the applicant paid the back taxes on the foreclosed building,” board member Randall Leverette said. “That’s before even taking possession ... essentially paying somebody else’s overdue taxes. To me, that says there’s an investment in our community.”
For 311 Partners LLC, a 15year payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) deal granted by the Industrial Development Agency
will save the company an estimated $1.4 million in property taxes.
The deal calls for taxes to be based on an assessment of the unimproved property for the first five years, then rising incrementally over the following 10 years.
The agency’s action on Wednesday also gives 311 Partners LLC a sales tax waiver of about $184,000 for construction-related purchases and a $25,000 mortgage recording tax exemption.
311 Partners bought the building for $475,000 at a tax auction.
BBG Ventures, which plans to lease space in the building, will have an estimated $311,780 in sales taxes waived on the purchase of equipment and materials needed for the renovation. BBG, though, will have to pay a $91,834.95 fee to the agency, an amount equal to 1 percent of the estimated $9.18 million cost of the project.
The Kingston Food Exchange, first proposed in late 2015, is to be combination food service, preparation and packaging facility that focuses on “highlighting the best foods of the Hudson Valley, the state and beyond.”
The project is to feature a fresh foods market, a farmto-table food hall, a state-ofthe-art food and beverage manufacturing facility and a business incubator, BBG has said. It also will have food education and community programs.
BBG Ventures partner Ben Giardullo said previously that the business will employ 90 to 100 people. He said about half would be BBG employees, while the remainder would be vendors and their employees.
The Kingston Planning Board approved the project in February.
Woolworth operated in the Wall Street building from 1956 until early 1994. In the years after the store closed, the space was occupied at different times by the party supply store SavOn and the records management firm Medrex.
The building dates to the 1880s.