NEW BEDFORD -- There was a time in the not too distant past when owners of a struggling business, after looking around for help and finding none, would decide to close up shop.
A short time ago, thriving companies that outgrew their local quarters might have opted to move their business out of the city -- someplace where the cost of doing business isn't quite so high.
Not anymore.
Thanks in large part to a state economic development program that offers companies state and local tax incentives if they expand their operations and create new jobs, firms that in past years might have left are staying put, growing their business and providing jobs for local workers.
Take Sid Wainer & Son, for example. The business has changed drastically in the 90 years since brothers Henry and David Wainer opened a produce market near what is the current site of the YMCA. Today, Henry Wainer (see photo), the brothers' grandson, oversees the family business, which today specializes in providing fine specialty food and produce to restaurants and hotels throughout the United States and further afield.
A gourmet outlet added to the company's Purchase Street headquarters draws shoppers from the Boston area and beyond. In short, business is booming.
But Mr. Wainer concedes that when the time came to decide where to grow the business, some consideration was given to moving it elsewhere.
"We've had several opportunities to leave the city and several good financial reasons to do so -- our electric bill, for one," Mr. Wainer said. But Mr. Wainer, who despite frequent 80-hour weeks at his business finds time to devote to the New Bedford CEO Club, the Greater New Bedford Industrial Foundation and Compass Bank, is convinced that if he stays he can witness the city's revitalization first-hand.
"We believe New Bedford is finally on the verge of having something positive happen," he said.
So when Mr. Wainer learned about opportunities offered through the state's Economic Development Incentive Program, his mind was made up. He'd stay and take advantage of what those incentives had to offer.
Recently, Mr. Wainer's business was designated as a certified project during a meeting of the state's Economic Assistance Coordinating Council, the panel that reviews and approves projects under the Economic Development Incentive Program.

Mr. Wainer's company and two other local businesses recently named certified projects will receive property tax breaks on facilities they improve or expand. Such deals, known as Tax Increment Financing agreements, may run for a period up to 20 years.
Through assistance that program offers, Sid Wainer & Son will make a $750,000 investment in the business. Among the improvements planned is a significant expansion of its cooler space and bagging operations. In the future, the company hopes to open floral and ripening operations. The company has brokered a seven-year tax increment financing agreement as part of the project.
As those expansion plans are moving ahead, Mr. Wainer is more confident than ever that his decision to stay was the right one.
"Geographically, New Bedford is a pinpoint to New England," he said. "The majority of this management team has been here for 15 to 20 years and they're all from New Bedford. This is our third expansion in five years. ... We're rolling."
Mr. Wainer recalls that five years ago he and his management team could often be found loading the trucks with produce. He expects in five more years people will see a much different picture.
"Five years from now ... we'll be selling the country specialty foods we've sourced from around the world and we'll be doing that right here from New Bedford."
The folks at Trio Algarvio hope that five years from now they'll be doing what they've always been doing -- processing fish. The only difference is much of what they'll be processing will be grown as part of their aquaculture program.
Though the state's Economic Development Incentive Program, Trio Algarvio will add five new jobs and retain three. They'll invest $1.5 million in improvements to its facility in order to rehabilitate and expand it to allow for the aquaculture program. They've reached a five-year tax-increment financing deal as part of that project.
"The aquaculture (project) will gradually take on steam)," said Kathy Downey, president of Trio Algarvio. "We've hired a culturist and begun renovations to accommodate the summer flounder."
Ms. Downey said the state's Economic Development Incentive Program was just what was needed to get the aquaculture program off the ground when traditional financing failed to pan out.
"Because of the risk involved with the project there was not a high degree of interest in helping us," she said. "I don't think there was a tremendous amount of interest in going out on a limb."
Ms. Downey said without the state's Economic Development Incentive Program, the company's future would be uncertain.
"We'd be floundering," she said. "We're not in the healthiest of industries and the future is not particularly charming. As we looked to the future, we foresaw a lot of problems in the industry and were questioning its stability. In order to stabilize our company we made the decision to diversify the sourcing of our product."
SeaWatch International is a relative newcomer to the region yet has already established firm ties that will bind it to the area.
Two years ago Sea Watch International purchased the former Blue Gold Mussels plant in the North Terminal, established a clam processing operation there and put 125 people to work.
As Michael Travers, assistant director of the New Bedford Corp., the city's economic development corporation, explained, one of the reasons Sea Watch was lured to the area was the incentives the state and local government could offer them.
The city previously granted the firm a 15 percent abatement -- worth $711,145 through the year 2000 -- on its sewer rates as part of an agreement to build a waste-water treatment plant at its facility.
Recently, the company finalized terms of a 20-year tax increment financing agreement that will give it a break on property taxes on the new facility.
"The TIF was part of their initial enticement to locate here and we've made good on that promise," Mr. Travers said.
Mr. Travers, who along with New Bedford Corp. director James Sullivan helps administer the Economic Development Incentive Program locally, said he believes Sea Watch will be expanding again in the near future.
The three firms collectively are responsible for creating an additional 110 jobs in the New Bedford area and spending more than $8 million improving their facilities.
The state-sponsored Economic Development Incentive Program is an initiative to spark job creation in distressed areas, attract new businesses to those regions and encourage existing businesses to expand.