Hilton Garden Inn in Port Washington to get tax breaks

Nassau County has awarded tax breaks to what would be the first hotel to carry the name of a national brand in the county's northwest corner.

The proposed Hilton Garden Inn in Port Washington received from the county's industrial development agency a sales tax exemption of up to $950,000 on the purchase of construction materials, furniture and other items, and $210,000 off the mortgage recording tax.

In addition, the hotel's property tax rate will be frozen for three years and then increase 2 percent in each of the next 17 years.

Joseph J. Kearney, the IDA's executive director, said Tuesday night that the 165-room hotel is sorely needed as companies expand in the surrounding industrial park and the nearby Harbor Links Golf Course grows in popularity. "Business people come to visit clients, and hotel accommodations are difficult to find up there," he said.

The project, to be located at 3 Harbor Park Dr., is valued at $26 million. That's $6 million less than the estimate made last month by developer Paul Amoruso. Tuesday night he said changes to the project had lowered its price tag.

The developers predicted the hotel will open in early 2017.

Records show that 62 people are expected to work there and be paid, on average, $28,000 per year.

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Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano lauded the project, saying it "eliminates community blight in this industrial area while generating millions of dollars in economic benefit for the community."

A closed sports facility will be torn down to make way for the hotel.

Similarly, the IDA Tuesday night backed a $9.4 million self-storage facility in Massapequa that would take the place of another shuttered health club.

Safeguard Self-Storage wants to open its fifth location in Nassau at 6000 Sunrise Hwy., across from the Westfield Sunrise mall and adjacent to the Long Island Rail Road tracks. The site had been home to Sunrise Health & Racquet.

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The IDA granted a $333,141 sales tax exemption and a property tax break that freezes the tax rate for five years, followed by 1.66 percent increases in each of the next five years and 2 percent in the final five years.

In return, Safeguard promised to create two jobs that pay $33,917 per year, on average. None of the company's other facilities in Nassau have received IDA tax breaks, said its attorney Chris J. Coschignano.

Safeguard is the fourth self-storage business to be aided by the Nassau IDA, said Kearney, adding, "There still is a demand for self-storage facilities in the county."