Pratt & Whitney to open New York turbine-coating plant

Pratt & Whitney will spend $140 million to open an aerospace turbine-coating plant employing 100 people in New York's Hudson Valley region, officials said. The United Technologies Corp. subsidiary will expand the 71,500-square-foot plant in Wallkill, N.Y., about 70 miles northwest of New York City, by 6,000 square feet and convert it for coating engine blades, the company said. The plant is expected to start operations in a year to 18 months, a spokesman cited by the Middletown Times Herald-Record said. The company already employs 95 people in a neighboring joint venture with Chromalloy Gas Turbine LLC. Pratt & Whitney chose New York for the new project over its home state of Connecticut, as well as Maine and Pennsylvania, Wallkill Town Supervisor Dan Depew said at a news conference. Empire State Development, New York's economic development agency, offered a $900,000 capital grant and up to $1.6 million in tax credits -- both tied to job creation and investment commitments -- to Pratt & Whitney, as well as other incentives. The 89-year-old company may also apply for county industrial-development tax breaks, the Record said. The announcement came as Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed eliminating New York's corporate income tax for manufacturers in regions north of the New York City area. A commission led by former Gov. George Pataki, a Republican, and former State Comptroller Carl McCall, a Democrat, recommended last month cutting the current 5.9 percent tax rate by about half. But Cuomo proposed dropping it altogether. "You can't beat zero," he told reporters Monday. Cuomo, a Democrat, also proposed cutting the overall state corporate income tax rate to 6.5 percent from 7.1 percent. He said a growing state budget surplus would fund the proposed tax breaks. He also said his administration was tightly controlling spending increases.