Pennsylvania Offers Up ‘Wall Street West'
SHAWNEE ON DELAWARE, Pa.— They're not stealing from the Big Apple, say a group of Pennsylvanians who hope New York City's financial giants will open disaster-ready offices in the Keystone state. They prefer to call it "augmenting."
"We're not looking to steal away the business of Wall Street," developer Lawerence Simon told two dozen executives yesterday he'd shuttled by helicopter to a posh Poconos resort on the Delaware River. "We are trying to make a ‘Mini-Me' of Wall Street."
Whether it's stealing, augmenting, or something else, Mr. Simon tried to woo New York firms to augment their headquarters in a corporate park he's calling Wall Street West by convincing them to establish backroom offices they could staff with top executives to quickly resuscitate their operations following a catastrophe like a hurricane, blackout, or terrorist attack.
"What you have worked so hard to make cannot be swept from you because of some psychotic individual," Mr. Simon told the executives after showing a dramatic montage, played to dramatic minor-chord music, of New York during its 2003 blackout and after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Opening a corporate office in his Pennsylvania development is close enough to New York City, supporters said, but distant enough that the site has a different power supply in case of a blackout and a different water source in case reservoirs that serve the city are poisoned.
"Plan B!" Mr. Simon glad-handed as he emerged with Congressman Paul Kanjorski from a stretch limousine to greet the executives — including those from Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley who had themselves just emerged from the three private choppers.
Over a menu that included filet mignon, lobster tail, and African spiced seared tuna, Mr. Simon initially said a major corporation had committed to be a tenant but conceded hours later at a news conference that nothing was in writing. "I have a definite tenant — maybe," he said.
New York City's Economic Development Corporation said corporate expansions like Citigroup in Long Island City and the Bank of New York in downtown Brooklyn show that the city itself can provide more than enough space for New York-based companies seeking backup offices outside Manhattan.
"Financial companies looking for geographic diversity have already found it within the five boroughs," a city development spokesman, Andrew Brent, said yesterday.
The development is called the Penn Regional Business Center, and the state would help fund it with $30 million, which includes grants and low-interest loans, Pennsylvania's chief of economic development, Dennis Yablonsky, said. Mr. Simon said he would be lobbying Mr. Kanjorski for federal dollars.
Several of the executives who flew more than 80 miles for Mr. Simon's presentation say the project looks good in theory. "Right now, it's a Power Point," a Merrill Lynch assistant vice president, Steve Giuca, said aboard one of the chartered helicopters returning to Manhattan yesterday afternoon."It hasn't been built yet."
