Starwood Relocation To Proceed Despite Snag
-- Hotels, 2/8/2010 10:19:44 AM
The planned relocation of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. from White Plains, New York, to Stamford, Connecticut, will proceed, despite a potential infrastructure funding roadblock.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the US$35 million in infrastructure improvements that Connecticut promised to Starwood as part of a deal to facilitate the move may actually be illegal. Connecticut planned to use federal stimulus money to pay for the improvements, but those funds may not be used in a way that would directly benefit one state over another.
The newspaper quotes Elizabeth Oxhorn, White House spokeswoman for the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, which funded the stimulus, as saying: "[Transportation] grants will not be awarded to fund a relocation of the Starwood headquarters... Recovery dollars can't be used to fund corporate relocations."
However, Starwood spokeswoman Nadeen Ayala says the relocation will go ahead regardless of whether the designated infrastructure improvements are made.
"Starwood Hotels' relocation to Connecticut is contingent on a US$90 million economic incentive package, but not the state's roughly US$35 million in planned transportation infrastructure improvements," Ayala says. "This [Wall Street Journal] article incorrectly said Starwood would not move to Stamford, Connecticut, if the infrastructure improvements were not made."
Read the entire Wall Street Journal article here.
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