High-tech firm relocates headquarters to Port Washington

Luke Torrance
Sonny Chabara, the founder of Agilant. (Photo courtesy of Agilant)

Agilant Solutions Inc., an IT services and technologies provider, is moving its national headquarters from Manhattan to Port Washington.

The move was announced Friday by the office of Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano, who said the company was lured to the area by the Industrial Development Agency.

“This is a huge coup for Nassau County and my economic development team deserves kudos for not just helping to keep Agilant in New York State, but bringing what ultimately will be more than 400 high-paying jobs to Nassau County,” Mangano said in a statement.

The tech company, formerly known as ASI System Integration, will move to a 72,500-square-foot warehouse and office building located at 3 Seaview Blvd. Agilant plans to spend $2.6 million on renovations to the structure and will begin occupying the building in January. The renovations will include offices, a technology lab, call center, help desk and warehouse space.

The first people to move into the new space will be 163 Agilant employees relocated from the old New York City headquarters and another office in New Hyde Park. But the county said the company plans to create 255 permanent jobs at the Port Washington office over the next five years.

In addition to the new jobs, Mangano’s office said that the Agilent’s move to Port Washington would bring $217.3 million in total economic benefit to Nassau County and net tax revenues of $1.38 million to affected tax jurisdictions. His office also said that additional financial assistance to lure Agilant was provided by the state’s Empire State Development Corp. and New York Rideshare 511 is negotiating a transportation assistance program with the company.

In order to help lure the company to Nassau County, Agilant was given $185,679 in sales tax exemption on furniture, fixtures and equipment necessary to renovate and equip the facility, according to a Mangano spokeswoman Amanda Laikan.

The company will also receive an 11-year PILOT, the first 10 years of which will be an assumption of an existing PILOT given to the property’s current owners, Ivy Enterprises. Year 11 of the PILOT will be a 2 percent increase over Year 10. Ivy Enterprises will relocate to another site in Nassau County.

PILOT, which stands for payment in lieu of taxes, allows companies to pay a reduced, pre-determined amount instead of property taxes. According to an IDA document from last year, Ivy Enterprises received $169,686.84 in county, local and school tax deductions during the 2015 fiscal year.

Agilant was founded in 2005 by Indian-born entrepreneur Surinder “Sonny” Chabra and was listed among New York’s 125 largest privately held companies in 2014 by Crain’s New York Business. It has partnerships with companies like Microsoft, HP and Cisco.

Efforts to reach Agilant were unavailing.

Laikan said that the IDA could not confirm whether Agilant had considered other locations in the county.

“They informed me that they can’t comment on whether or not there were other locations in Nassau being considered, but that this specific Port Washington location was what they received an application for, and so that’s the deal they evaluated,” she said.

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