Officials Await Decision—

Global Tech Firm

Eyes Newtown

By John Voket

Local officials are hopefully but patiently awaiting a decision from a Danbury-based global technology firm, about whether it will relocate its world headquarters to Newtown in 2010.

ATMI, a $100 million firm with ties to semiconductor industries, is eyeing a future corporate headquarters site off Edmund Road, according to the information discussed at the December 1 Board of Selectmen meeting.

The board later unanimously recommended the town aggressively pursue all avenues to bring the project to Newtown, and extending the maximum available economic development incentives to company officials. The ability for the town to extend maximum benefits allowed by state statute for the benefit of enticing economic development proposals like this was previously approved by the Legislative Council.

During discussion, Selectmen Paul Mangiafico and Herb Rosenthal learned that First Selectman Joe Borst, Legislative Council Chairman Will Rodgers, and Community Development Director Elizabeth Stocker recently met with company officials and a relocation consultant to discuss the possibilities of ATMI moving and expanding its local facilities to Newtown, bringing upward of 200 new jobs and, ultimately, as much as $300,000 in annual property tax revenues.

Discussion about the project came to light after Mr Borst included a letter to Ms Stocker and his fellow selectmen in correspondence for the December 1 Board of Selectmen meeting. A copy of that letter was subsequently provided to The Bee.

In that letter, Mr Borst informed relocation executive Marisa Manley that the Newtown Legislative Council approved a general resolution in support of offering companies considering developments in Newtown maximum tax incentives permitted by State law. The Economic Development Commission did the same at its meeting of November 18.

“I believe these actions show unified support by the Town of Newtown to welcome ATMI to our community and I look forward to working with you to make this a successful move,” the letter stated.

At the November 5 council meeting, EDC commissioner Robert Rau reported that Pitney Bowes plans to leave Newtown, and that a then unnamed company proposed investing $20 million for a new headquarters and laboratory facility at the vacant site.

According to a meeting transcript, Mr Rau said the current Town Business Incentive Plan was not competitive with what is being offered to that company by other communities in and outside of Connecticut. He said that the State of Connecticut has an incentive plan that offers tax abatement in excess of what Newtown has approved.

Mr Rau said under Section 12.65h of the Connecticut Statutes, a municipality may authorize by affirmative vote of its legislative body to agree to a plan that could provide abatement of 100 percent of the increase in the personal property assessment for seven years.

Legislative Council Vice Chairman Francis Pennarola moved to authorize the Economic Development Commission to propose an amendment to the current Business Incentive Plan to be able to offer the maximum that the State Statute permits to a business that would locate in Newtown.

That motion also passed unanimously.

During the December 1 selectmen’s meeting, Mr Borst said ATMI was also considering sites in the Albany, N.Y., region, and that Newtown needed to be positioned to compete with generous initiatives to recruit the Connecticut company to upstate New York.

Mr Borst said he told company officials that he believed Newtown not only offered a more desirable location, but a better quality workforce than what ATMI might find in New York’s Capital Region.