Prudential employs more than 4,800 people in the City of Newark where the Company occupies more than 1.8 million square feet of space. With several of its leases in the City set to expire the Company commenced a comprehensive evaluation of its Newark occupancy to identify the optimal location strategy.

BLS & Co. advised Prudential on the role of incentives in its overall location strategy, and ultimately secured approval of an Urban Transit Hub Tax Credit award in support of the construction of a proposed new facility and the creation of new high-compensation positions.  The project, which will result in a redevelopment of an entire city block, represents the single largest project in Newark in a generation.  

BLS & Co. developed and executed an incentives strategy to induce the company to consolidate Royal Bank of Scotland's North American corporate bank, based in NYC, and its RBS/Greenwich Capital headquarters in a new office and trading floor in Stamford, CT. The package consists of transferable corporate income tax credits and other incentives in connection with the proposed retention and creation of approximately 1,800 jobs. The scale of this package required legislative hearings and consent.

BLS & Co. advised New York Life on the relocation of approximately 1,000 employees from the company’s Manhattan headquarters location to a new facility in Westchester, New York.

BLS & Co. was successful in securing an economic development incentive package that included a PILOT (Payment in Lieu of Taxes), sales tax exemptions on construction materials and FF&E purchases, a state capital grant and a discount of the utility bills.

BLS & Co. has represented Citigroup on projects throughout North America. We managed the development and implementation of an incentive strategy for two mirror 300,000 sf data center facilities, one in Ohio and one in Texas. The incentives in both locations included real and personal property tax abatements. In Ohio, BLS & Co. structured a unique public financing, including the creation of a Port Authority.

BLS & Co. was engaged to devise an incentives strategy for ACE Limited (now Chubb) in support of their consolidation and relocation of back office operations from New York City to Jersey City, New Jersey.

As part of the package, ACE was approved for a New Jersey BEIP grant and an exemption from sales tax on construction materials and equipment purchases.

BLS & Co. worked with Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) on two projects: a New Jersey-based incentives advisory and a Florida-based site selection.

BLS & Co. developed and executed the incentives strategy to facilitate the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation’s (DTCC) move from Lower Manhattan to Jersey City, New Jersey. DTCC’s migration and ongoing operations in New Jersey were financed, in part, by the EDA’s Business Employment Incentive Program (BEIP).  DTCC also became the first beneficiary of the Economic Redevelopment and Growth (ERG) Grant program.

In 2002, the “Fed White Paper” challenged the financial industry to make the investments required to assure continuity and liquidity in capital markets. For the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC), this challenge gave rise to an intensive confidential site search that scrutinized multiple markets over six months. The search ultimately concluded in Tampa, where the collaboration of state, county and city commitments made a material difference in off-setting project costs.

The approved incentives included the Governor’s Closing Fund and new city and county programs created for this project. BLS & Co. also advised the client on integration and restructuring of its pre-existing incentives agreement in NYC into its overall redeployment and diversification of operations to Florida.