Empire State Development (ESD) is the umbrella organization for New York's two principal economic development public-benefit corporations, the New York State Urban Development Corporation (UDC) and the New York Job Development Authority (JDA). The New York State Department of Economic Development (DED) is a department of the New York government that has been operationally merged into ESD. ESD gives its mission as promoting the state economy, encouraging business investment and job creation, and supporting local economies through loans, grants, tax credits, real estate development, marketing and other forms of assistance.

History

The state Division of Commerce was created in 1941 and subsumed several state bureaus and the Bureau of Industry. It was replaced in 1944 by the state Department of Commerce. The New York State Urban Development Corporation (UDC) was created in 1968 by the York State Urban Development Corporation Act. On August 31, 1987, the Omnibus Economic Development Act created the state Department of Economic Development (DED). In 1975, the UDC was reorganized and its mission expanded from developing

housing Housing, or more generally, living spaces, refers to the construction and assigned usage of houses or buildings individually or collectively, for the purpose of shelter. Housing ensures that members of society have a place to live, whether ...

to economic development. In 1995, the functions of the DED and the UDC were consolidated, along with the Job Development Authority (JDA) and the Science and Technology Foundation (STF). UDC's directors decided that the corporation would do business as the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC). Some functions of JDA and STF were folded into ESDC and DED, respectively, and the collective entity was branded as Empire State Development (ESD). In November 1999 the STF was abolished, and in 2011 the New York State Foundation for Science, Technology and Innovation (NYSTAR) was merged with DED. In its early years the UDC was responsible for "the last significant program of publicly assisted housing in the United States". At the time it was primarily aimed at urban renewal in New York City although its bonds were to be used statewide. Virtually all state subsidized housing built since 1968 was financed through the corporation. In the first years of the UDC, its aim was to facilitate large-scale low-income housing developments in urban neighborhoods that had traditionally been white and middle-class. In 1970, ''

Business Week ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...

'' claimed that the UDC was "emerging as the most powerful state agency in the country for coping with urban growth." By 1974 the investment climate had cooled and in 1975 Governor Hugh Carey asked the Legislature to appropriate $178 million for the UDC, and by 1977 the UDC was able to reenter the financial markets. In 1975, the corporation was reorganized and its mission expanded from developing housing to economic development. The finances were reorganized and the corporation assumed a less aggressive development stance, and its mission was refocused to finance other ambitious state projects and has been used frequently by governors to implement projects that circumvent formal Legislative or voter scrutiny. The move away from a housing mission began in the late 1970s and early 1980s with such projects as the

Jacob K. Javits Convention Center The Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, commonly known as the Javits Center, is a large convention center on Eleventh Avenue between 34th Street and 38th Street in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, New York City. It was designed by architect James I ...

and improvements to the

Apollo Theater The Apollo Theater is a music hall at 253 West 125th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard (Seventh Avenue) and Frederick Douglass Boulevard (Eighth Avenue) in the Harlem neighborhood of Upper Manhattan in New York City. It is a ...

. Among its projects was a doubling of the New York state prison system, improvements to

Love Canal Love Canal is a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, United States, infamous as the location of a landfill that became the site of an enormous environmental disaster in the 1970s. Decades of dumping toxic chemicals harmed the health of hund ...

, construction of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, revitalization of

42nd Street (Manhattan) 42nd Street is a major crosstown street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, spanning the entire breadth of Midtown Manhattan, from Turtle Bay at the East River, to Hell's Kitchen at the Hudson River on the West Side. The stree ...

, revitalization of

Niagara Falls, New York Niagara Falls is a city in Niagara County, New York, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total population of 48,671. It is adjacent to the Niagara River, across from the city of Niagara Falls, Ontario, and named after the fame ...

, construction of

Battery Park City Battery Park City is a mainly residential planned community and neighborhood on the west side of the southern tip of the island of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by the Hudson River on the west, the Hudson River shoreline on the north ...

, development of

Roosevelt Island Roosevelt Island is an island in New York City's East River, within the borough of Manhattan. It lies between Manhattan Island to the west, and the borough of Queens, on Long Island, to the east. Running from the equivalent of East 46th to ...

, as well as planning for construction of a new

Pennsylvania Station Pennsylvania Station (often abbreviated Penn Station) is a name applied by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) to several of its grand passenger terminals. Several are still in active use by Amtrak and other transportation services; others have been ...

and for development of

Governors Island Governors Island is a island in New York Harbor, within the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is located approximately south of Manhattan Island, and is separated from Brooklyn to the east by the Buttermilk Channel. The National Park ...

. While the UDC ultimately was to have big successes with such projects as

and

it was to encounter major problems in its

inner city The term ''inner city'' has been used, especially in the United States, as a euphemism for majority-minority lower-income residential districts that often refer to rundown neighborhoods, in a downtown or city centre area. Sociologists some ...

developments and its efforts to build minority low-income housing in white middle-class neighborhoods. The Corporation still maintains a housing portfolio that currently includes mortgages for 20,200 housing units valued at $650 million in total.

Mario Cuomo Mario Matthew Cuomo (, ; June 15, 1932 – January 1, 2015) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 52nd governor of New York for three terms, from 1983 to 1994. A member of the Democratic Party, Cuomo previously served as ...

was the first to begin ambitious use of it to get around official scrutiny for public projects. In 1981 voters voted against a $500 million bond issue for expansion of the state prison system to handle increased prison populations arising from the

Rockefeller drug laws The Rockefeller Drug Laws are the statutes dealing with the sale and possession of " narcotic" drugs in the New York State Penal Law. The laws are named after Nelson Rockefeller, who was the state's governor at the time the laws were adopted. Ro ...

. At the time New York had 32 adult prisons. Cuomo was to use the bonds to build another 38 prisons — most upstate.

George Pataki George Elmer Pataki (; born June 24, 1945) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 53rd governor of New York from 1995 to 2006. An attorney by profession, Pataki was elected mayor of his hometown of Peekskill, New York, and went on ...

used the corporation to distribute $20 billion in federal aid following the

September 11, 2001 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...

to help rebuild lower Manhattan and build the 9/11 memorial. A subsidiary,

Lower Manhattan Development Corporation The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation was formed in November 2001, following the September 11 attacks, to plan the reconstruction of Lower Manhattan and distribute nearly $10 billion in federal funds aimed at rebuilding downtown Manhattan. ...

, and the

World Trade Center Memorial Foundation The National September 11 Memorial & Museum (also known as the 9/11 Memorial & Museum) is a memorial and museum in New York City commemorating the September 11 attacks of 2001, which killed 2,977 people, and the 1993 World Trade Center bom ...

were set up for those purposes. Rebuilding was financed by

Liberty bonds A liberty bond (or liberty loan) was a war bond that was sold in the United States to support the Allied cause in World War I. Subscribing to the bonds became a symbol of patriotic duty in the United States and introduced the idea of finan ...

. Whether the lack of public scrutiny has helped or hurt the development process can be debated. An audit released in May 2006 by New York comptroller

Alan Hevesi Alan G. Hevesi (born January 31, 1940) is a former American politician and convicted felon who served as a New York State Assemblyman from 1971 to 1993, as New York City Comptroller from 1994 to 2001, and as New York State Comptroller from 2003 ...

reported that the Corporation loses track of its subsidiaries. At the time the corporation reported 70 active subsidiaries, but the audit showed there were 202 subsidiaries still legally on the books (98 of which were definitely inactive). The audit did not consider this a serious oversight but the corporation stated that it intended to dissolve the inactive corporations. In 2007, under Governor

Eliot Spitzer Eliot Laurence Spitzer (born June 10, 1959) is an American politician and attorney. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the 54th governor of New York from 2007 until his resignation in 2008. Spitzer was born in New York City, attended P ...

, an Upstate ESD headquarters opened in Buffalo in recognition of the different economic challenges posed in the upper and lower (NYC region) parts of the State. Two chairs were appointed, one for ESD Downstate and the other for ESD Upstate. The ESD board also authorized the creation of another subsidiary, Upstate Empire State Development Corporation, to concentrate on Upstate issues. In 2008, Governor

David A. Paterson David Alexander Paterson (born May 20, 1954) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 55th governor of New York, succeeding Eliot Spitzer and serving out nearly three years of Spitzer's term from March 2008 to December 2010. A ...

brought the two components of ESD back together again, emphasizing that New York is truly “One State”. The former Upstate and Downstate offices now work together to ensure that New York's economic development strategy benefits the entire State, while being mindful of the specific resources and special challenges of each region. In January 2011, Governor

Andrew M. Cuomo Andrew Mark Cuomo ( ; ; born December 6, 1957) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 56th governor of New York from 2011 to 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected to the same position that his father, Mario Cuo ...

appointed

Kenneth Adams Kenneth is an English given name and surname. The name is an Anglicised form of two entirely different Gaelic personal names: ''Cainnech'' and '' Cináed''. The modern Gaelic form of ''Cainnech'' is ''Coinneach''; the name was derived from a byn ...

as ESD President & CEO and DED Commissioner. Mr. Adams was confirmed by the Legislature on April 5, 2011. In May 2011, Governor Cuomo appointed

Julie Shimer Julie may refer to: * Julie (given name), a list of people and fictional characters with the name Film and television * ''Julie'' (1956 film), an American film noir starring Doris Day * ''Julie'' (1975 film), a Hindi film by K. S. Sethumadhav ...

as Chair of ESD. She was confirmed by the

New York State Senate The New York State Senate is the upper house of the New York State Legislature; the New York State Assembly is its lower house. Its members are elected to two-year terms; there are no term limits. There are 63 seats in the Senate. Partisan comp ...

in June 2011. State control over projects in New York City has often involved turf conflicts between the New York City mayor and the governor (including the fact that the state authority is exempted from city zoning rules). Many of the projects have had devastating impacts on neighborhoods and resulted in

white flight White flight or white exodus is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the United States. They refer ...

and charges of

reverse discrimination Reverse discrimination is a term for discrimination against members of a dominant or majority group, in favor of members of a minority or historically disadvantaged group. Groups may be defined in terms of ethnicity, gender identity, nationality ...

. As an example, the UDC's construction of the

Harlem State Office Building The Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building, originally the Harlem State Office Building now called “Lekisha R Turner State Office Building”', is a nineteen-story, high-rise office building located at 163 West 125th Street at the corn ...

in 1969 aroused intense opposition from the neighborhood which wanted the resources applied in other ways.

Ada Louise Huxtable Ada Louise Huxtable (née Landman; March 14, 1921 – January 7, 2013) was an architecture critic and writer on architecture. Huxtable established architecture and urban design journalism in North America and raised the public's awareness of th ...

called the fight "Rockefeller's Vietnam". The term "urban development" took on an negative connotation and in 1995 UDC was renamed the Empire State Development Corporation. During the coronavirus pandemic, ESD was accorded a leading role in delineating what businesses would be considered essential in New York State. In a late 2020 ''

per curiam In law, a ''per curiam'' decision (or opinion) is a ruling issued by an appellate court of multiple judges in which the decision rendered is made by the court (or at least, a majority of the court) acting collectively (and typically, though not ...

'' decision of the Supreme Court, '' Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo'', ESD categorizations of essential services were noted for excluding religious services while, at the same time, not being limited to services which can be considered as essential. Avi Schick, former President of ESDC (2007-2009), criticized the corporation as acting beyond its purview in determining what constitutes essential activities, particularly as it relates to religious practice.

Structure

Since 1995, four entities have been operationally merged and referred to as Empire State Development (ESD): * Urban Development Corporation (UDC),

d/b/a A trade name, trading name, or business name, is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is a "fictitious" business name. Registering the fictitious name w ...

Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC)New York State Urban Development Corporation Act, Chapter 174 of the Laws of 1968 **In 2017, the UDC had operating expenses of $1.282 billion, an outstanding debt of $12.895 billion, and a staffing level of 351 people. * Department of Economic Development (DED) * New York Job Development Authority (JDA),

Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) **In 2017, the JDA had operating expenses of $2.96 million, an outstanding debt of $10.068 billion, and a staffing level of 4 people. * Science and Technology Foundation (STF) Although ESD officials have programmatically consolidated the DED, UDC, JDA and STF, they have not legally consolidated the agencies. The commissioner of the DED is the chairman of the boards of UDC, JDA and STF, but those boards continue to operate as separate bodies. The UDC is allowed to operate through subsidiaries.New York State Urban Development Corporation Act ( L. 1968, ch. 174) § 12 Each subsidiary has its own board of directors. , there were nine subsidiaries of ESD:. ESD also has more than 120 inactive subsidiaries such as the Archive Preservation Corporation and the Governors Island Redevelopment Corporation. These subsidiaries are legal entities but are no longer used and have not been legally dissolved. *

Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Africa, Europe a ...

(AYCDC) *

Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, beh ...

(BBPDC) *

Convention Center Development Corporation Convention may refer to: * Convention (norm), a custom or tradition, a standard of presentation or conduct ** Treaty, an agreement in international law * Convention (meeting), meeting of a (usually large) group of individuals and/or companies in a ...

(CCDC) *

Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation Erie (; ) is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. Erie is the fifth largest city in Pennsylvania and the largest city in Northwestern Pennsylvania with a population of 94,831 a ...

(ECHDC) * Harlem Community Development Corporation (HCDC) *

(LMDC) * Moynihan Station Development Corporation (MSDC) * Queens West Development Corporation (QWDC) *

USA Niagara Development Corporation The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

(USAN) The New York State Foundation for Science, Technology and Innovation is also listed on the

New York State Comptroller The New York State Comptroller is an elected constitutional officer of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and head of the government of New York (state), New York state government's Department of Audit and Control. The New York State C ...

's website as a public benefit corporation that carries out functions that were formerly performed by NYSTAR. NYSTAR is now listed on the ESD website. The New York State Foundation for Science, Technology, and Innovation and NYSTAR are not listed in the 2018 New York State Authorities Budget Office report and so both might be dissolved or chose not to report.

Operations

The UDC is empowered to issue bonds and notes, grant loans and tax exemptions, acquire private property, exercise

eminent domain Eminent domain (United States, Philippines), land acquisition (India, Malaysia, Singapore), compulsory purchase/acquisition (Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, United Kingdom), resumption (Hong Kong, Uganda), resumption/compulsory acquisition (Austr ...

, create subsidiaries, and exempt projects from/override local laws, ordinances, codes, charters or regulations (e.g., zoning). As with all

New York state public-benefit corporations New York state public-benefit corporations and authorities operate like quasi-private corporations, with boards of directors appointed by elected officials, overseeing both publicly operated and privately operated systems. Public-benefit nonprofi ...

, it can issue bonds without a voter referendum, bypassing the NY's state constitution limits. the UDC reported outstanding debts of $11 billion. , major projects included the: *

Atlantic Yards Pacific Park is a mixed-use commercial and residential development project by Forest City Ratner that will consist of 17 high-rise buildings, under construction in Prospect Heights, adjacent to Downtown Brooklyn, Park Slope, and Fort Greene in ...

Project * Aqueduct Race Track Civic Project *

Belmont Park Belmont Park is a major thoroughbred horse racing facility in the northeastern United States, located in Elmont, New York, just east of the New York City limits. It was opened on May 4, 1905. It is operated by the non-profit New York Racin ...

Redevelopment Study *

Buffalo Billion Buffalo Billion is a New York state government project led by former Governor Andrew Cuomo that aims to invest $1 billion in the Buffalo, New York area economy. The project uses a combination of state grants and tax breaks to spur economic ...

* City-by-City Projects *

Columbia Columbia may refer to: * Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America Places North America Natural features * Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region i ...

Manhattanville Manhattanville (also known as West Harlem or West Central Harlem) is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan bordered on the north by 135th Street; on the south by 122nd and 125th Streets; on the west by Hudson River; and ...

Project * Midtown Rising * Radisson Community * Victoria Theater Redevelopment A

procurement Procurement is the method of discovering and agreeing to terms and purchasing goods, services, or other works from an external source, often with the use of a tendering or competitive bidding process. When a government agency buys goods or s ...

opportunities newsletter, ''The New York State Contract Reporter'', contains notices of procurement contract opportunities and is published by the Department of Economic Development. Economic Development Lawbr>article 4-C
/ref>

References

* * *

External links

*
New York State Urban Development Corporation
in the

New York Codes, Rules and Regulations The ''New York Codes, Rules and Regulations'' (NYCRR) contains New York state rules and regulations. The NYCRR is officially compiled by the New York State Department of State's Division of Administrative Rules. Contents See also * '' New York ...

Department of Economic Development
in the NYCRR
New York Job Development Authority
in the NYCRR
New York State Science and Technology Foundation
in the NYCRR
New York State Contract Reporter

Empire State Development
on Open NY (https://data.ny.gov/)
Empire State Development Corporation
recipient profile on USAspending.gov {{Authority control Public benefit corporations in New York (state) World Trade Center State departments of economic development in the United States Economy of New York (state) Empire State Development Corporation Government procurement in the United States