Prometheus 6

Harlem River Yard Ventures, a private development company that is leasing about 100 acres in the South Bronx from the state, for example, committed to invest some $650 million but so far has invested only $19.7 million, according to the records. The company also fell far short of its job creation goals.

Companies controlled by Robert Congel, a Syracuse developer, also figured prominently in the records, which showed they were falling short of their investment goals by hundreds of millions of dollars. Mr. Congel, who has long had plans to build an upstate supermall, has been a high-profile political donor, most recently to Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

The documents show Wal-Mart as far short of its projected investment of $45 million, having invested only $3.2 million. Lowe’s projected a $9 million investment, but has put up only $700,000 so far, according to the development corporation’s report. The documents did not make clear which store locations of the two chains were included in the program.

State Warns Companies in Tax Deals
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and DANNY HAKIM

ALBANY, July 30 — Officials alerted about 3,000 companies on Monday that they could lose the tax breaks they received under the state’s enterprise zone program because they had failed to create jobs or invest in their areas as promised.

Warning letters sent to the companies reflected the first significant auditing and enforcement effort in the two-decade history of the program, the Empire Zones. During that period, the program has transformed from an effort aimed at pockets of extreme urban poverty to an all-purpose business program offering tax breaks to companies statewide, costing taxpayers $3 billion since 2000 alone.

Nearly 10,000 businesses are certified to participate in the program, according to officials at the Empire State Development Corporation, the public benefit corporation that oversees the program. Three thousand of those businesses were issued letters indicating that they had met less than 60 percent of their job creation or investment goals. The companies on the list ranged from large corporations like Wal-Mart Stores and Lowe’s to small businesses like Zaro’s Bake Shop on Bruckner Boulevard in the Bronx and Jamaica Donuts in Queens.

The letters came two weeks after a report issued by the consulting firm A. T. Kearney concluded that the Empire Zone program had been “morphed by political patronage, legislative revision and commercial manipulation” and required extensive reform.