LONG ISLAND

JUNE 2008

EXPANSIONS and OPENINGS

Canon U.S.A. said it will file site plans with the Town of Huntington for a new five-story 690,000 square-foot headquarters in Melville (Suffolk).  Canon said the company would grow its workforce to 2,500 at the new headquarters and will serve as a model of an environmentally responsible development project.  (Long Island Business News – June 30, 2008)

In the long disputed Cerro Wire shopping mall proposal, Acting State Supreme Court Justine Jeffrey Spinner ordered the Town of Oyster Bay to issue a permit for the project and approve its site plan.  The developer (Taubman Centers Inc.) proposed a luxury mall on the 39-acre property 860,000 square-foot three level, high-end stores.  The $500 million development plan includes Barneys New York, Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom as anchor stores.  Taubman said they are willing to meet with town officials to work out a resolution and are hopeful to open in the fall of 2010.  (Newsday – June 11, 2008)

Three East End (Suffolk) hospitals struggling to stay open as independent entities - Peconic Bay Medical Center, Southampton Hospital and Eastern Long Island Hospital - merged to form the East End Health Alliance.  The Alliance will negotiate higher reimbursement contracts with health insurers and will streamline administrative functions and purchasing departments and eliminate competition between the hospitals.  (Long Island Business News – June 20, 2008)

Garden City Hotel’s buyer Alrose GCH has been approved by the Hempstead Industrial Development Agency for tax breaks to remodel the four-star hotel.    The IDA approved a 10-year payment in lieu of taxes agreement that would freeze Alroses’s current $1.7 million bill for school, county and village taxes for a three-year period and then gradually increase those payments over the remaining seven years of the deal.  By the 11th year, the hotel would be required to pay its full share of real estate taxes.  (Newsday - June 11, 2008)

The number of workers in information technology jobs on Long Island total about 28,000 said Pearl Kamer, chief economist for the Long Island Association.  According to Barbara Viola of Viotech Solutions, a Farmingdale (Suffolk) high-tech staffing company,  “Long Island has a very high percentage of tech workers, but hasn’t had the media attention.”  Viola has witnessed tech’s comeback on several fronts.  Her group has been grappling with ways to ease the shortage of high-tech workers.  The American Electronics Association’s also reports a resurgence of tech growth locally, its local membership rising from 35 members to more than 200 in 10 years.  (Newsday – June 30, 2008)

Hofstra University in Garden City (Nassau) received a $25 million capital grant from the state toward their campaign to raise $150 million for the building of the Hofstra University School of Medicine.  Renovations of the temporary headquarters will begin next summer and groundbreaking on the new building will commence in the fall of 2011, the same year the university will admit its first class.  (Newsday – June 3, 2008)

The first of the EA-18G Growler electronic attack airplanes was delivered to the Navy on 6/3/2008.  Northrop Grumman Corp’s facility in Bethpage (Nassau) is a major contributor to the Growler.  Engineers and technicians, working in a new design laboratory in Bethpage, designed an advanced system, the ICAP III, considered the most advanced jammer in the world.  (Newsday – June 3, 2008)

Northrop Grumman Corp. officials say the Bethpage (Nassau) facility could add “a few hundred” new jobs in the next few years as a result of its work on electronic radar jamming systems, such as those installed in the EA–18G Growler.  Grumman has about 2,000 people currently working in Bethpage and has slowly added jobs over the past few years, after shedding thousands in the 1980’s and 90’s as the Cold War wound down.  In 1986, the company employed more than 25,000 as the former Grumman Corp. was acquired by Los Angeles-based Northrop Corp. in 1994.  (Newsday – June 5, 2008)

A new downtown community plan designed to knit together three towns – Flanders, Northampton and Riverside was unveiled by the Southampton Town Board.  It would bring stores, offices, apartments and a 15,000 square foot supermarket to a 52.8 acre site in the neglected part of the town that has no downtown center.  The area to be developed is now zoned for a variety of uses - highway business, light industry and 15,000 square foot residential development.  The plan was subject to public hearing and initial community response was positive.  (Newsday – June 26, 2008)

The Urban League of Long Island will receive a $750,000 state grant to help develop an economic incubator for small business in Central Islip (Suffolk) and surrounding communities (Brentwood, Bay Shore and Islip).  (Newsday – June 28, 2008)

Verizon Communications’ Long Island headquarters building in Garden City (Nassau) has won the U.S. Energy Department’s Energy Star Award for operating the largest commercial fuel-cell site of its kind in the country.  Verizon has spent less on electricity and oil and has saved $500,000 to $600,000 a year with the fuel cells.  (Newsday – June 30, 2008)

LAYOFFS and CONTRACTIONS

E-Z-EM, Inc. of Westbury (Nassau) was acquired by Bracco, a new parent and is letting go of 32 employees starting June 27, 2008.  The company is undergoing a restructuring.

IWCO Direct has filed a WARN notice laying off 214 workers at there Melville (Suffolk) facility.  The last day of work is June 24 and June 25, 2008.

Lake Success (Nassau)-based Island Peer Review Organization (IPRO), Inc., an "independent, not-for-profit corporation committed to assessing and improving the value of health care services received by consumers" states it will lay off 139 people on August 1 if the expected loss of the current contract is finalized.  (WARN, June 9, 2008)

Foreclosures in the East End (Suffolk) Hampton area are increasing.  From October 2007 to March 2008, there were 415 “lis pendens” filed, a 30% increased compared to the prior six months.  During that same six-month period 42 foreclosure auctions were scheduled for the East End, a 40% increase.  In this first quarter of 2008, more than half the homes to be auctioned on the East End were in Southampton and East Hampton.  Three of these were properties with liens higher than $1 million.  Last year on the East End, there was no single foreclosure auction for a property with a $1 million plus mortgage.  Eight homes were taken back by banks in the first four months of this year in the five East End Towns.  There were none in the same period a year ago.  (Newsday – June 3, 2008)

Wellpoint Inc., a Medicare administration contractor in Jericho (Nassau) is closing its site 9/30/08.  The company employs 24 people and 17 are being laid off.  These individuals conduct Medicare audits at various hospitals.  The remainder will be separated by 9/30/08.

Great Eastern Printing, Inc., a commercial printing facility in Syosset (Nassau) is downsizing due to lack of business.  The company laid off 50 workers in May 2008.  The owner does not plan to shut down completely and is operating with a skeleton crew.

Suffolk Life Newspapers in Riverhead (Suffolk) is closing on 6/25/2008 resulting in the job losses for 75 employees.