N.J. Incentive Programs Spark New Commercial Activity

On February 4, the Newark Regional Business Partnership hosted a program about New Jersey’s Economic Opportunity Act.

Ted Zangari, one of the panelists and a Member of Sills Cummis & Gross, “told NRBP members that Grow New Jersey recipients can boost their per-job award by meeting a host of bonus criteria. They include locating in the state’s designated ‘urban transit hubs,’ being in a deep poverty pocket and bringing high-paying jobs to the state.

Those bonuses come with the potential to effectively have free rent for 10 years in places such as Newark, Zangari said. But the programs also offer enough incentives to entice a company that insists on building in a suburban or rural area, he said, though provisions aimed at environmental remediation, housing development and others areas.

‘That company will still obtain, through bonus points, enough money to do the responsible thing on a cornfield, to at least decimate any offer (from Pennsylvania or New York),’ Zangari said. ‘It’s enough to get the deal done, because it’s still a powerful number.’”