Fed-Up Verizon Scraps Niagara County Data Center

John, should there be no upper limit on the amount of public subsidy offered by NY state per $80K data center job created? Doesn't $3M per job sound like way too much?

You didn't mention that NYS was buying those 200 jobs for $3.1 million each (over the course of 15 years). Seemed kind of like a bad deal to me, personally.

Too bad... I'm not going to get into the the subsidy fight, but in an area where there is only one fringe Fortune 500 company it is too bad that when one wants to invest we turn them away.

Is there an unbiased source to view regarding what the 600 million entailed (guess that boats sailed anyway)? The Wyoming paper used phrasing that made it sound more like a discount on future taxes and power.

Handing someone $600 is quite a bit different than discounting $600 off of a $4000 purchase. Which was it?

200+ high paying tech jobs that will be going to Wyoming. 200+ Western New Yorkers who might have to move to find a good job. All because 1 Amherst resident doesn't want this built across the street from the field she owns. Thanks for nothing b|tch.

Lets see: we're the most miserably overtaxed people in america, so it is smart and beneficial for our various governments to buy us some jobs at $3 mil apiece. ok, got it.

This was not a "huge" loss. It's a sign of a region that has been burned too many times before.

It was not a good development project. Too expensive for too few benefits.

The money could be spent on much better development projects that don't take up beautiful land and create sprawl, like this enormous ugly box was going to do.

You would think we'd take a lesson from the Bass Pro debacle. If someone really wants to be here, they show it by putting up their own money.

Something else to consider: For the taxpayer's cost to create just 30 of those Verzion jobs, we could renovate the entire Statler and creat a few hundred jobs right in the city.

The property Verizon wanted was right next to a coal fired electrical plant, no public right of ways had to be crossed to deliver the electricity.

This cuts National Grid completely out of the action and costs them $20 – $25 million in transmission and delivery fees. With bucks like this on the line, I wouldn’t be surprised if National Grid had a lot to do with the lawsuit stalling.

Please stop vilifying some old lady. Hauling out the nimby whining is so pathetically cliche and so pathetically easy, trying digging a little deeper huh?

Give Verizon $206,000 a year for each $80,000 a year job?

Its frightening that ANYONE (other than Verizon) thought this was a good idea.

Why doesn't the Buffalo News or channel 2 hound this women, how come she doesn't have to answer for the opportunity cost? She isn't creating any jobs is she.

What a joke. I hope her and the Don Apparel woman have a party together and celebrate standing in the way of progress for selfish reason. In 30 years this will still be a field, and in 30 year those craping six houses on forest and elmwood will be falling down.

These people suck at life.

I think it's incredibly unlikely that Verizon called this off due to a lawsuit, just like I don't believe that Bass Pro was totally ready to start construction if it wasn't for big bad Tim Tielman and Mark Goldman.

Verizon probably sues ten people every day. They live and breathe this stuff. They have the financial and legal power and political clout to make little annoyances like this go away without raising a sweat. If they really wanted to, they could easily buy this woman out for the rounding error in their daily revenues.

This whole lawsuit thing is a colossal excuse/distraction, and I'm amazed that so many people are taking it at face value.

Maybe just maybe someone in this community will one day see the big picture. A large investment may lead to an even greater payoff. Idk, if this would have happened from this deal but at least something would have happen. MS. RIZZO of West Seneca or wherever and the cheese-d**k lawyer should have to answer to the public.

What if just seems to keep coming back into my mind..

I guess maybe I am missing something here but I've read the Buffalo News article three times albeit quickly and the Verizon rep said they were not building in Wyoming. In fact, its sounds like their recent acquisition is causing them to put their construction projects on hold. And they are taking that opportunity to make a few zings on their way out the door, setting things up so you all beg harder when and if they decide to come back.

I am not from Buffalo but I am in development. No project goes easily. If Verizon wanted to build their project, they would have worked their way around that lawsuit which sounded like it might have been a frivolous one. I believe they didn't do the project for other reasons.

I went to Syracuse University. I got a Masters in Public Administration/Urban Planning from Maxwell School. At the time, NY state was doing the same dang thing they are doing now....trying to pay industry to move into the state. Its bull. It results in very few jobs and the cost to taxpayers is exorbitant.

Better to grow your own companies.....that's where the real jobs are. Microsoft, Amazon, Starbucks et al started off as small operations that grew into major employers with tens of thousands of well paying jobs. You need to be nurturing your incubating companies rather than playing footsies with Verizon's very adept attornies.

Frankly, I am more impressed with the rehabs that are happening on your Main Street than I am with a Verizon call center......uh, I mean data center. In fact, I guarantee you.....you turn downtown Buffalo into a vibrant, active, stimulating neighborhood companies will come knocking on your door. Its called quality of life, and companies and their employees love it.

Good Ole Mrs. Rizzo made a lot of enemies very quickly.

I wonder how many teachers, police officers, firefighters etc. could have been hired for the kings ransom the state was about to give Verizon.

Couldn't the state "create" jobs just as well by hiring 200 public servants?

Nothing new here. A low impact development in a community thats trying to re brand itself. WNY needs to feed off its success. I'm sure Verizon took a hard look because of yahoo's data center. And I'm sure they backed out because of the uncertainty that a lawsuit brings with it. Its not like a Wal-Mart, etc development. Projects like that have a 100 developments in the pipeline at any one time. They can afford to battle because their not pressed for time. Companies that are looking to build data centers might have 1 or 2 in the pipeline and cant afford the uncertainty. A project like this has limited contribution to sprawl. Low impact. Its not like your building roads,schools, sewer,lights, etc to serve 100's of homes. It doesn't need trucks delivering goods on a daily basis. Its a data center for heaven sake. Apple identified and built one in NC in the time that its taken verizon to fight this one.
People get up in arms when preservationist try and save an old building. How about attorneys and greedy people who feed off the court systems in situations like this. I say lets sue them for blocking this project with a frivolous law suit. I'll contribute towards it. Maybe next time people will think long and hard before they selfishly act. Anyone in,

Arthur Giacalone the attorney represented the Rizzo's has done this time and time again but nothing on this scale.When a ever a project is planned Giacalone is like an ambulance chasing personal injury attorney. He feeds off their fears and greed. I'm out raged, our community needs jobs especially in the tech industry.

Let's be clear...they never said there would be 200 jobs any time soon...there MAY be UP TO 200...So NYS gives them money now, then as jobs may be added...I bet NYS has to give more money. Developers need to stop depending on "free" money so they can phase in their projects. There has to be some faith that these pie in the sky plans are going to materalize...or you have to give the money BACK

VZ may have brought in 200 jobs or may have stopped at 150, then again they could have expanded like Yahoo! is doing. The fact is we will never know what could have been because the project is dead for WNY. We can speculate on the reasons why Verizon decided to call it quits on Somerset, but these are all just guesses.

The only fact we have is that there are 1 - 200+ private sector jobs that will not be available in WNY. This results in 1 - 200+ people who will need to find employment from one of the other private companies, potentially for less than what they would have earned at Verizon. 1 - 200+ fewer jobs that offer competition to other private sector companies. 1 - 200+ jobs that could have raised the bar in terms of pay and benefits for technology workers in WNY. 1 - 200+ jobs that would be contributing to the tax base instead of taking from it.

I still can't understand why people keep saying that NYS is giving the company money. They are just not collecting tax.

It is a shame that people don't understand that if you don't compete in a national/global marketplace companies will just go else where.

Companies will only locate here if there is a strategic advantage (cheap power, great infrastructure "erie canal", cheap labor, low taxes, access to customers, etc.)

You gotta give them something. In the 1800's the Erie Canal and in early 1900's Power was our strategic advantage. We have yet to replace it with something in the meantime tax breaks might be all we have to work with.

I personally find Mr. Straubingers article to be tiresome, misleading, and loathsome in tone. I think that the financial incentives for this project are the kind of entitlements that corporate apologists and kleptocrats demand so that they can extract enormous financial gain from taxpayers while the gain to the local economy is minimized.

Maziarz is all wrong when he says Giacalone abused the system. Fast tracking and avoiding SEQRA is a misuse of the system.

This process, lead by Maziarz is not a way to build a strong local economy. We need jobs but we can do way better. The lawsuit was only a part of the reason that Verizon moved on. They wanted more, demanded more. And they are in financial difficulty. I applaud the actions of Mr. Giacalone and his client for demanding that SEQRA, accountability, and transparency are both the law of the land and remain as strong tools to defend what a lot of people regard as the public interest. They are important tools in defending strong local economies from economic extractors like the multinational Verizon, or for that matter Wacker Chemie, mentioned by Straubinger in this article. They could have turned our waterfront into another Bhopal. I guess we are lucky that the Tokyo Power and Light Company arent here proposing to build a taxpayer financed GE designed nuclear plant. BR probably would turn Straubinger loose on that one, you know, fair and balanced reporting of the critical economic positives of having that kind of public investment...Its time to stop believing in the silver bullets of big company investment. They take more than they give and the bullet is deadly. Go local!

SEQRA and public accountability are important tools in building a solid and sustainable local economy which is really what we have to do if we are going to survive the non-democratic onslaught of private sector globalist economic takers.

It is too bad that BR allows a SEQRA NIMY like Straubinger to act as a "reporter" on important issues such as this. It crushes BR's credibility. This article deserves to be an opinion piece or a letter to the editor, not BR's masquerade as coverage of critical local issue. Your readers deserve better.

Typical WNY insanity? What is it in the water or the food or the air?

Why is this allowed to occurr over and over again when so many lives here depend on small incremental success stories like this Verizon, Wacker Chemical and all the other lost opportunities.

After looking into the 'subsidy' further, one wonders why any company would move here. If our idea of a subsidy, one that people would get up in arms over, is not having to pay sales tax on items, we're in serious trouble.

Verizon is a company that has profits, PROFIT!, greater than the entire revenue of the National Football League. Allowing them to not pay sales tax, and write a check for over 100 million dollars to the town and county over ten years, as well as hiring 200 people at $85,000 per year, is not some huge benefit to them. People who get confused once a number goes above a thousand shouldn't be chiming in... real people work at real jobs, 500 of which would have been building that center.

Plain and simple, this is a loss for Western New York.

And the beat goes on...

Our politicians are so smart. As governemnt representatives they have an innate ability to pick out the private businesses who are going to provide the best services for the public and reward them with "comparative advantage" in the form of tax breaks so they call sell their service or product to the taxpayer who just financed the "comparative advantage." There are a lot of internet service providers out there and many who are providing wireless services why is Verizon rewarded and the others are not? What is the public receiving? It only takes a few minutes of searching the internet to find out that wireless communication is going to increase in the future. Look at the products that Apple and the other manufacturers are promoting and selling. Every wireless provider is looking for ways to charge more and more for the total amount of data downloads. We are going to be dependen on wireless for our personal and business lives. These charges for downloaded data is going to affect our schools, hospitals, and a host of other public institutions. The taxpayer will pay twice, once in taxes that are not collected and secondly by allowing Verizon to price their product based on tax advantages rather than compete fairly. It is rather comical to hear the right wingers and Republicans complain about the cost of jobs through Obamas stimulus plan but then go out and exceed his cost/job in their own economic development. By the way the executive and stockholders were hoping for this deal to go through for their own selfish reasons.

This project should have been dead in the water simply based on New York State's anti-sprawl legislation (see below). Developing on inexpensive farmland here and elsewhere is one of the biggest problems facing our nation. Build a facility for 200 people and soon there will 600 or 1,000 people working there. Roads will need to be widened, sewer lines enlarged, while Verizon isn't paying taxes to contribute to the expense. Jobs are good, but if the jobs are needed they will be created and policy should insist that growth be done intelligently. Are there no vacant former industrial buildings, or land in the Lockport or Niagara Falls that could have been used?

"New York’s smart growth bill directs certain N.Y.S. agencies to avoid approving, funding or otherwise supporting public infrastructure projects that are inconsistent with the bill’s anti-sprawl goals. These goals include (a) using existing infrastructure; (b) directing growth towards existing municipal centers; (c) promoting infill development in locations that municipalities themselves have already identified for growth; (d) preserving open space and other natural resources; (e) fostering downtown revitalization–among several others."

The funnt thing is that there is a recently decommisioned data center in WNY being marketed as we speak. Maybe it's just not big enough for what Verizon needs but it could be bought for pennies on the dollar compared to what they are talking about spending on a new one.

Knowing Giacolone he made the first phone call to this woman and convinced her she should hire him and fight for her "rights" made her believe that her property values would go down............this is just so disturbing. Yet he blames the town...........

I personally find Mr. Straubingers article to be tiresome, misleading, and loathsome in tone. I think that the financial incentives for this project are the kind of entitlements that corporate apologists and kleptocrats demand so that they can extract enormous financial gain from taxpayers while the gain to the local economy is minimized.

Maziarz is all wrong when he says Giacalone abused the system. Fast tracking and avoiding SEQRA is a misuse of the system.

This process, lead by Maziarz is not a way to build a strong local economy. We need jobs but we can do way better. The lawsuit was only a part of the reason that Verizon moved on. They wanted more, demanded more. And they are in financial difficulty. I applaud the actions of Mr. Giacalone and his client for demanding that SEQRA, accountability, and transparency are both the law of the land and remain as strong tools to defend what a lot of people regard as the public interest. They are important tools in defending strong local economies from economic extractors like the multinational Verizon, or for that matter Wacker Chemie, mentioned by Straubinger in this article. They could have turned our waterfront into another Bhopal. I guess we are lucky that the Tokyo Power and Light Company arent here proposing to build a taxpayer financed GE designed nuclear plant. BR probably would turn Straubinger loose on that one, you know, fair and balanced reporting of the critical economic positives of having that kind of public investment...Its time to stop believing in the silver bullets of big company investment. They take more than they give and the bullet is deadly. Go local!

SEQRA and public accountability are important tools in building a solid and sustainable local economy which is really what we have to do if we are going to survive the non-democratic onslaught of private sector globalist economic takers.

It is too bad that BR allows a SEQRA NIMY like Straubinger to act as a "reporter" on important issues such as this. It crushes BR's credibility. This article deserves to be an opinion piece or a letter to the editor, not BR's masquerade as coverage of critical local issue. Your readers deserve better.

I don't understand how a building could cost 4.5 billion? That is some serious development money. I mean screw the price tag of the casino. 4.5 billion could build a skyscraper and redevelop the whole cobblestone district.