The Fedtrade® podcast recently interviewed Daniel Clark, Vice President and Director of Business Development at the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), as part of our SelectUSA Investment Summit Spotlight series. NYCEDC is a mission-driven, nonprofit organization that works for a vibrant, inclusive, and globally competitive economy for all New Yorkers. They take a comprehensive approach, through four main strategies: strengthen confidence in NYC as a great place to do business; grow innovative sectors with a focus on equity; build neighborhoods as places to live, learn, work, and play; and deliver sustainable infrastructure for communities and the city’s future economy. Members of NYCEDC will be attending the 2025 SelectUSA Investment Summit in National Harbor, Maryland, from May 11-14, 2025.
Learn more about NYCEDC on their website or follow them on LinkedIn. Connect with Daniel on LinkedIn.
Key Takeaways
- Innovative sectors NYCEDC focuses on tend to shift every few years, but currently tech, life sciences, and the green economy are key areas.
- Securing IP protection, navigating regulatory aspects, and cost are common challenges faced by international companies seeking to go to market in the United States.
- There are over 74 business incentives that apply in New York City through all three levels of government.
- SelectUSA Investment Summit is a key event for economic development.
[a copy of the written transcript is here]:
Hello, welcome to Fedtrade®. I’m James Hastings of Rothwell Figg. Joining us on the podcast today is Daniel Clark, Vice President and Director of Business Development of New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC). Daniel will share the mission of NYCEDC, its services, and how it assists international companies and startups to choose New York City as a preferred go-to-market destination to establish a business.
Daniel, welcome to Fedtrade®.
Thanks for having me, James.
Daniel, what is the mission of NYCEDC?
Sure thing. So we do a lot of things. But our mission is to create a vibrant, inclusive, and globally competitive economy for New Yorkers and we do it in four key ways. One is by strengthening business confidence, and that is my remit at EDC. We also grow innovation sectors. We build neighborhoods, and we also deliver sustainable infrastructure. And to tell you a little bit more about our organization, we’re different from most EDOs in the U.S. in that one, we’re quasi-governmental, but we’re also a nonprofit structure. So the governmental side of it is that our president and CEO is appointed by the mayor of New York City. And on the nonprofit side, most of our funding is drawn from our real estate assets, so not taxpayer dollars. It’s drawn from about 70 million square feet of real estate across the five boroughs that we reinvest back into the city. We have about 550 employees here in lower Manhattan. We have a billion dollar annual operating budget, a $10 billion capital plan, and those 70 million square feet under management.
You had mentioned working with innovation sectors as one of your primary components of the mission. What types of innovation sectors do you work with?
It’s always shifting every few years and typically when a new administration comes in, we’ll take a hard look at not necessarily what are the sectors that New York City is the strongest in today, but what do we want to be strong in 10, 20, 30 years from now. So the three primary ones for us are tech, life sciences, and green economy. On the tech front, this has been the case since the mid 2000s when we took a hard pivot from finance into tech. It still is what’s driving the future of the city, probably with more of a focus on AI now. But during the pandemic, we actually transitioned from a finance-first city to a tech city, officially. We have over 360,000 tech employees, which makes it the largest percentage of our workforce. So tech is really important to us, servicing about 25,000 startups in the city, 1,200 VCs, and doing a lot around AI. Life sciences is number two, and typically when you think of U.S. life sciences hubs, New York City is high up on the list, and we compete very closely with the Boston area and the West Coast. We’re putting a billion dollars of our dollars at EDC into the industry because we believe that we can surpass those markets, primarily because of our health care system. We have the strongest health care system in the country, and we are receiving billions of dollars in NIH funding. And there’s a lot of infrastructural reasons why we think we can be that life science center for the country. And then finally, green economy. New York City is home to a lot of progressive legislation around climate issues. So our Green Economy Action Plan is driving a way for us to take advantage of that. And for companies, especially European companies, to cluster here in New York City, where it’s easier to do business from Europe to the East Coast. And we’re putting hundreds of millions dollars into offshore wind, climate tech, including a $100 million investment to create a climate innovation hub in Brooklyn. So those are our three focus areas, tech, life sciences, and green economy.
In the innovation sector, intellectual property protection becomes very important for international companies. Do you recommend that be conducted?
Yeah, absolutely, James. The earlier the better, especially when you’re at that international moment. You want to get with an IP attorney. As a government organization, we don’t provide the service directly, but we have a great network of providers that do, including your firm. Typically, we’ll make a referral to a Chamber of Commerce within New York City. You know, we’re a city of boroughs, cities within cities, and multiple levels of business associations and chambers of commerce that can make those referrals to companies.
And legal and regulatory compliance for any company these days entering into the U.S. market are equally important, and this includes food, agriculture, or any of the other sectors that you had mentioned.
Certainly in New York, I mean, you’re dealing with, of course, federal regulations, state regulations. And then in the city, we have our own network of agencies that are going to have regulatory standards that you need to follow – our Department of Health or Fire Department, you know, as every city would. But New York City being such a large city, it can be complex. And that’s one of the reasons why our team exists- to help cut that red tape, to simplify things. My team focuses typically on larger businesses, businesses that are pretty ready to enter the market and we’ll work one-on-one with them. We also have a complementing department of small business services that has a program called the Small Business Solution Center. And they exist primarily for this purpose of helping you navigate the various regulatory standards of New York City. So there’s definitely help for businesses.
What are some of the common challenges that international companies face when seeking to go to market in the United States that you’ve encountered?
You know, that’s one of them. The regulatory aspect is overwhelming. You put on top of that the IP protections that they have to secure, the tax ramifications for entering into the U.S. and navigating those three levels of taxes, federal, state, and city. And of course, immigration. And having a good attorney to help you with immigration. Those are the most straightforward challenges. I think everybody kind of knows they have that in store for them when they enter the U.S. market. And the other one, especially with a very competitive market like New York, is cost. New York is the dream for a lot of firms, but some of them might not necessarily think that they can afford to go after New York City right away. Our team is here to say, yes, it’s being done every day. The majority of new businesses being started in New York City are started by immigrants. That’s the story of New York. Companies are starting businesses every day here. And there are a number of programs that we can support them with, including incentive programs to help with the financial aspect of things.
Is there a typical profile of an international startup or existing entity that seeks out your services?
Yeah, it really ranges. Of course, it depends by industry. Certain industries are going to come in with more financing secured and they’ll be looking for more real estate. But for my team, we specialize in what we call large and strategic, which is 50 or more jobs at play, 10 million dollars raised or more. Typically, they know that they’re ready for the U.S. They’ve hired someone to come in and lay the groundwork for them. And they’re choosing between cities. That’s our sweet spot when they’re at that stage so that we can provide them a short list of properties. So we do site selection for companies on their behalf. We’re not a broker, so we don’t transact, but we’ll paint the picture for what it looks like to locate in lower Manhattan, what it looks like to be in Midtown, in Long Island City, in downtown Brooklyn, and give them the different incentive overlays to that, what they’ll be eligible for in each neighborhood, what universities they might work with, what local groups they might work with, business associations, chambers of commerce, and once we start doing that and start doing site tours, that’s when projects become more real.
Does NYCEDC have its own grants and incentives, or do you work with third party partners?
We do. So there are over 74 business incentives that apply in New York City. It’s quite complex, but that’s a good thing. There’s a lot of opportunity out there. And that’s at all three levels of government. At the city level and the ones that we administer directly within EDC there’s another acronym, New York City IDA, the Industrial Development Agency. And with that program, we can abate taxes to landlords for up to 25 years. So we could do long term property tax abatements. We can waive sales tax on construction and fit out costs. We could waive mortgage recording fees, which could be significant at times, up to 3 percent. And we do that historically for industrial businesses in the outer boroughs of Manhattan. This year, we expanded that program – it’s very exciting – to commercial office buildings in New York to encourage renovation of older offices into trophy stock, which is being leased at the highest rates in not only New York, but American history right now, the trophy assets of New York City. And those benefits can be passed down to tenants in triple net leases. So the IDA has been a really effective program for us. In addition, New York City has a couple as of right programs. I’ll just go through two and then maybe just one on the state level because it’s important. At the city level, companies can be eligible for up to $3,000 per employee for every job they move to either lower Manhattan or the outer boroughs of New York. So that is Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx, as well as upper Manhattan above 125th street. So $3,000 per employee per year for a 12 year period. And that’s a refundable tax credit. It’s very valuable for companies that have five employees or more. So it’s a pretty low threshold. And then there’s a city program to reduce energy costs by up to 50% called ECSP. And finally, there’s a state program I’ll mention that complements the programs that I already mentioned called Excelsior Jobs Tax Credit, where employers can be refunded back a 7% tax credit for 7% of each employee’s salary. So if it’s $100,000 salary, that’s up to a $7,000 tax credit that could be taken advantage of at the state level.
Does NYCEDC work with private equity firms who may be interested in promising startups or established companies who seeking to go to market in the United States?
We do. have a private equity strategy where we’re constantly reaching out to firms and letting them know that we have these tools to support their portfolio companies. I would say even more so we work with VCs. We’re working with our existing 1,200 VCs in New York and we’re doing a lot on the West Coast as well to let folks know that when they have that West Coast company that’s looking to make the big move to the East Coast that our team is standing by to support. And we’re also doing attraction of those private equity firms and VC firms themselves. We want them here. Historically, if you have a physical presence in New York, you’re going to be investing more in New York companies. So it’s big part of our strategy.
We understand that NYCEDC will be exhibiting at SelectUSA Investment Summit in National Harbor, Maryland this coming May. Can you tell us a little about your activities there?
Yeah, it’s a big one for us. I always refer to it as the Super Bowl of Economic Development. I think it’s the most comprehensive event on our calendar in terms of everyone in this industry, whether your side on the legal side, my side as an EDO. You have trade organizations from every country in the world. You have site selectors, brokers, you have any consultant you could think of, and of course, the thousands of companies themselves that are vetted and ready to come to the U.S. If you’re looking at the U..S market and you want an opportunity to meet everyone that you could possibly imagine, you’re going to get that at SelectUSA. So I highly encourage it for anyone in any of those buckets that I just mentioned. We’re going to be exhibiting with our partners, Empire State Development from our state group. And yeah, we’re going to be meeting with companies. A lot of our work is set up in advance, which is great. We’ll set up our meetings and meet them at our exhibition area. But it’s also great as an EDO to be networking with all the international consulates and trade orgs. We’re blessed to have over 100 of them here in New York City, but the actual ambassadors themselves in DC and there’s a lot of folks in the Capitol that are important for us to meet with as well.
Are there any success stories that you can share either from SelectUSA Summit or your work with international companies?
Yeah, we’re an international town. We’re a global city. So most of our lead flow, about 60 percent, is international. Last year, just a couple names that I could think of off the top of my head, we did a big trade mission to the UK and brought back some wins from that trip with our partners at SelectUSA. Whenever we travel, we always involve our SelectUSA office that’s in the destination market. So in the UK, we brought back Broadwick, which is not our typical client, but a pretty fun one. They opened up a concert venue in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, leasing about 100,000 square feet and activating what’s mostly an industrial and office campus, but giving a different flavor to it and spurring economic development in a unique way through their EDM concerts that they put on in Brooklyn. We brought back Pension B, which is a FinTech pension platform based out of London that moved to lower Manhattan this year. Another UK one out of Northern Ireland, Artemis Technologies. A really neat maritime company that’s building EEV boats that are currently being docked at Brooklyn Navy Yard as well, possibly doing some more work with our ferry system and with our coast guard in the future. Other markets I’ll just throw out. Australia has been a busy one as of late. You mentioned attracting investors before, and we were able to bring in Australian Super, the largest super fund out there with billions under management, to Midtown Manhattan. That was a big win for us. And then the other markets, Japan is always in our top three. We have a list of startups that we brought in last year. Germany’s up there. And France and Canada typically are in our top five.
For companies seeking additional information on NYCEDC, what are some of the best resources to do so?
Well, of course, the website, edc.nyc, pretty easy to get down. And that goes through our entire portfolio. So that includes our real estate side of our house, our initiative investments in industry. And then specifically, I would go to choose.nyc. You can navigate it on the main site, but choose.nyc is the business facing side of our operation. Making the case for why companies should ultimately choose NYC and a list of our services including incentive guides, resource guides, neighborhood maps, and everything that you need to get started.
Daniel Clark, Vice President and Director of Business Development of New York City Economic Development Corporation. Thanks for joining us.
Thank you, James.