According to just released statistics from Capital District Realtors Downtown Schenectady still has the highest office vacancy rate of any small area City. Worse than Troy. Worse than Saratoga that do not have a  Metrograft tax. Despite the phony job creation numbers, Schenectady's vacancy rate stayed at 13.8% bad as six months ago. This is with SCCC filling empty Center City. Where are these alleged 3,500 new jobs located? The area around City Hall resembles lower State below Erie Blvd. Desolation Boulevard. Smells like renaissance!

If they (the plex and elected officials), know that if they let the free market aka capitalism do their job.....downtown would be a worse ghost town then it is now. WHY? Because the 'free market' will not set up business in an area where taxes are unmanageable, crime is rampant, a dysfunctional school system and where 1/2 of the population's job is standing in line at the dss building. So downtown is just a facade for a false sense of economic security.

Most businesses have been relocated from one part of the county to another just shifting the tax base.(and that's even if they pay taxes) Yes there are new businesses such as the bow tie, but anyone can have their pick of seats at any given day/night. There are bars in the area that are probably the most successful of any businesses which is hardly a compass for economic growth. And proctors, although it hosts many shows that helps keep most downtown businesses a float, is a money pit for the taxpayers.

In retrospect, the plex/elected officials 'tried' to resurrect downtown with the promise of creating jobs and relieving property owners of their unsustainable taxes, it has not worked for the 'greater good' of the county. It has instead created a false facade of economic growth and security. The winners? The folks running the show, their developers and the tax paid CEO's of the many non-profits.
The losers? The working taxpayers.
imho

Quoted from bumblethru

If they (the plex and elected officials), know that if they let the free market aka capitalism do their job.....downtown would be a worse ghost town then it is now. WHY? Because the 'free market' will not set up business in an area where taxes are unmanageable, crime is rampant, a dysfunctional school system and where 1/2 of the population's job is standing in line at the dss building. So downtown is just a facade for a false sense of economic security.

Most businesses have been relocated from one part of the county to another just shifting the tax base.(and that's even if they pay taxes) Yes there are new businesses such as the bow tie, but anyone can have their pick of seats at any given day/night. There are bars in the area that are probably the most successful of any businesses which is hardly a compass for economic growth. And proctors, although it hosts many shows that helps keep most downtown businesses a float, is a money pit for the taxpayers.

In retrospect, the plex/elected officials 'tried' to resurrect downtown with the promise of creating jobs and relieving property owners of their unsustainable taxes, it has not worked for the 'greater good' of the county. It has instead created a false facade of economic growth and security. The winners? The folks running the show, their developers and the tax paid CEO's of the many non-profits.
The losers? The working taxpayers.
imho

    Couldn't be said any more succinctly or accurately!  .........................
                                            Thanks for packaging this unfortunate reality!

Quoted from bumblethru

If they (the plex and elected officials), know that if they let the free market aka capitalism do their job.....downtown would be a worse ghost town then it is now. WHY? Because the 'free market' will not set up business in an area where taxes are unmanageable, crime is rampant, a dysfunctional school system and where 1/2 of the population's job is standing in line at the dss building. So downtown is just a facade for a false sense of economic security.

Most businesses have been relocated from one part of the county to another just shifting the tax base.(and that's even if they pay taxes) Yes there are new businesses such as the bow tie, but anyone can have their pick of seats at any given day/night. There are bars in the area that are probably the most successful of any businesses which is hardly a compass for economic growth. And proctors, although it hosts many shows that helps keep most downtown businesses a float, is a money pit for the taxpayers.

In retrospect, the plex/elected officials 'tried' to resurrect downtown with the promise of creating jobs and relieving property owners of their unsustainable taxes, it has not worked for the 'greater good' of the county. It has instead created a false facade of economic growth and security. The winners? The folks running the show, their developers and the tax paid CEO's of the many non-profits.
The losers? The working taxpayers.

Bravo! A wonderful review of the implosion madness. Two thumbs up! And they all lie about creating 3,500 new jobs which don't exist. Two hundred jobs at the Battery Plant {which hasn't opened}. Where are the other 3,300 jobs working together crew? Yawn-change subject-start lying about nonexistent tax cuts.

i do believe u are full of S$%& benny slimey... the numbers are inaccurate. and do not account for the new SCCC classroom

A taxpayer supported classroom is not an office idiot. Try reading the realtor stats-like you couldn't read a tax search. Nothing to add just slime over posters.

Quoted from Smoking Bananas

i do believe u are full of S$%& benny slimey... the numbers are inaccurate. and do not account for the new SCCC classroom

smokey...........i suggest that perhaps you may want to 'investigate' exactly when that battery plant is suppose to open. And may i also suggest that you don't look to the elected officials for that answer. DIG DEEP DOWN.

Investigate? lol. All he ever does is slime other posters that present facts. Sure the Capital Region Realtors are making up facts to make Death Ray and McCarthy look worse. If possible-no?

Someone on here keeps insisting that downtown has made gains but as far as places to eat/shop for every new place a similar place closed and left, or was pushed out to accomodate a new place. Really. Maybe the Hilton was a gain, if you don't count the Ramada because it was outside downtown.
Proctor's was already there, as was the Y, numerous bars, etc.

What Hilton? Think you mean The Parker Inn which went belly up because of the brilliant leadership of Death Ray and his Metrograft morons. Everyone knows Downtown is a total fraud. Except the stunad primary voters in Rotterdam. They think it is wise public policy to give tax money to connected developers so town businesses can be raided raising their own residential taxes. Who needs a tax base when you gots a governmental gin mill?  

8 years ago under a Republican Mayor -- Downtown was in WORSE shape .. more vacancies ...  the renaissance  has started but it took the GOP 40 years to destroy downtown ... it will take a few more years to undue that damage.

Oh -- and Downtown is NOT empty --- any idiot knows better ..except for the NNN idiots.

Quoted from DemocraticVoiceOfReason

8 years ago under a Republican Mayor -- Downtown was in WORSE shape .. more vacancies ...  the renaissance  has started but it took the GOP 40 years to destroy downtown ... it will take a few more years to undue that damage.

Oh -- and Downtown is NOT empty --- any idiot knows better ..except for the NNN idiots.

You really should take a class in economics regarding the free market and capitalism. Perhaps downtown was less appealing 8 years ago, but that was a factual economic reality. Basing economic growth through moving businesses around like chess pieces on a chess board only means that there are still the same amount of chess pieces located on the same board. Also, measuring economic growth by bars that have patrons is also not the plumb line for economic growth.

Downtown is a picture of socialized economics. Businesses hand picked and paid for by the government/taxpayers. And when 1/2 of the population (which is growing daily) is busy standing in line at the dss building, is clearly not what is meant by job creation.

GE, the same company that is responsible for destroying schenectady, is the same company that is being wined and dined in schenectady by receiving hundreds of thousands/millions of taxpayer money and taxbreaks. Ironic to say the least.

well the weekend is here. three days without moronic statements, we hope, from slimey and the gang. we know he has to do weekends in the slammer,. lol

WE HAVE ALREADY GIVEN SCCC MONEY....LOOOOOOONG BEFORE METROPLEX.....

and let's not get started on the tuition increases.....why?

5 weeks vacation (not including summers)
fully paid healthinsurance
10 days sick
and retirement up the a$$

NOW GET OFF MY BACK YOU MONKEYS......2 layers of payment for an already bloated system that is DYSFUNCTIONAL AT BEST.....and RAPE

just ask about the SCCC certified nurse aide training program, who pays for it and where the student body comes from....just to be trained for stink a$$ $10/hour jobs....cant afford home ownership
or rental in the city and mostly not in the F'EN county......and they are putting them out in the 100's because there are no other good jobs....battery jobs for $15/hour?-----F'EN joke.......

the only reason DSS is so big is so those at the top can afford lawncare/pool care/elder care/disabled care etc etc.........FEEEEEEED ME........

Public (i.e. crappy) college professors make far more than prestigious and accomplished private university profs. All part of the public employee screwjob these demoCRAPS are famous for!