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Dinosaur CEO John Stage
• UPDATE: Troy City Council approved an aid and tax abatement package for Dinosaur and the former restaurant that will house it now is being renovated.
TROY, NY -- The latest chapter in the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que saga has been written, and it favors the Syracuse-based mini-chain that wants to take over a vacant riverside restaurant.
Dinosaur founder John Stage, a minority owner who is president and CEO of the company that operates restaurants in Syracuse, Rochester and Harlem, had said he needed to have pending taxes on the building paid before he could operate there. He also asked for a series of tax breaks and accommodations from the city's Industrial Development Agency (IDA).
At this morning's IDA meeting at City Hall, he got what he asked for, and now plans to convert the former Fresno's restaurant in time to open a Dinosaur by next spring.
More than $200,000 in back taxes on the building had been owed by Troy Properties LLC, which owns the property at 377 River Street, just south of the Green Island Bridge.
Stage, who was present at today's public hearing, said the expansion would never have happened without the tax assistance.The IDA also is offering Dinosaur a 20-year PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) program to defer taxes on the improved value of the property, after more than $1 million in renovations are completed, for five years. Both matters were approved unanimously. Stage's company also will be exempt from $60,000 in sales tax on building materials used for renovations and a $53,000 mortgage recording tax.
“I’m not going to pay somebody else’s taxes. It’s just not going to happen,” Stage said at a post-hearing press conference. "I never even thought to get involved with the IDA until we found out about these back taxes. It wasn’t like we came here just for the assistance.”
What little public opposition there has been to the project has come mostly from current business people who have not had any financial assistance from the city. There also was some upset whe it was revealed that liberal Democrat George Soros, a politically active billionaire, last year became majority owner of Dinosaur when two of Stage's partners sold their shares and retired. Stage has stressed that Soros has nothing to do with running the restaurants.
However, Mayor Harry Tutunjian has been waging a very public lobbying campaign to get Stage to expand to Troy as part of a continuing improvement to the city's business sector and has had strong support from throughout the Capital Region.
NOTES ON NAPKINS: Go here for the background on this expansion project. ... Not familiar with Dinosaur? Go here for my review of the original location, entitled "This Dinosaur a modern miracle."
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