IDA raps hotel for not meeting hiring target

Ulster County Industrial Development Agency members have been left unconvinced by an argument that Greenhouses Hotel on Bruynswick Road in Wallkill has not met hiring goals because it is paying employees too much.

Now, IDA board members are considering whether a tax break agreement needs to be altered or revoked.

Questions about the agreement were discussed during a board meeting earlier this month, with officials on Monday saying no new information has been received showing the lodging and events facility has moved closer than 50 percent of a promise to create 17 jobs.

“Our response to hiring in Ulster County in the hospitality space is with pay and a quality work environment,” said Greenhouses Hotel LLC owner Douglas Posey.

“We promised to pay $16 an hour and we’re paying $32 an hour on average,” he said. “Our (employees) are making about $60,000 a year rather than $30,000. They’re buying homes, they’re having kids. They stayed with us from Day 1 until now and our work force has slowly grown but they’re quality people, our clients get a quality product, and it’s my preference to keep it that way.”

Board Chairman James Malcolm was not impressed the amount paid because the agency had granted tax breaks in 2016 based on employment figures.

“With all due respect your payroll journal doesn’t mean a whole lot to me because your application is about job creation,” he said.

“You can structure it any way you want, you can control that by virtue of paying people different wages and hit that target point.”

Under the application The Greenhouses received exemptions for $71,680 in sales taxes and $17,187 in mortgage recording taxes as well as a payment-inlieu-of-taxes agreement running through 2033 that will reduce property taxes by an estimated $1,026,797.

The project was constructed on the 5.6-acre site of former greenhouses that were built around 1930 but had not been used for nearly 10 years when tax breaks were approved for the hotel and events center in 2016.

Posey also noted that it has also been difficult to meet the hiring goal because COVID-19 restrictions and concerns have crippled the travel lodging industry.

“We’ve been closed most of this year,” he said. “Most of our business is event-based so the lodging stays on site along with a business conference, a wedding ... and other things like this.”

Agency officials were not too sympathetic with the current status, saying that the targets had not been reached before the pandemic, with Malcolm suggesting that the property tax agreement be modified.

“You can have that discussion with the (agency chief executive officer) and the lawyer because we’ve already decided at this point that we may or may not modify,” he said.