Delaware North’s enormous windfall profits from Niagara Falls State Park accrue to Buffalo Billionaire Jeremy Jacobs’ fortune
Nearly two decades into their state contract to provide food service and other amenities in the Niagara Falls State Park, we have obtained hard numbers as to how much money the multinational fast food conglomerate Delaware North Companies reaps from their operations in the world famous tourist destination.
And to say that they are nothing short of astonishing would be an understatement.
A document obtained this week by the Niagara Falls Reporter under the Freedom of Information Law reveals that Delaware North Companies made more than $4.72 million from concessions operations they ran in the Niagara Falls State Park over the one year period from Aug. 1, 2016 to July 31, 2017.
The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (“State Parks”) yielded the stunning financial details of Delaware North’s sweetheart deal with the state to the Reporter, pursuant to our FOIL request.
For the month of July, 2017 alone, Delaware North realized $305,579.22 from Top of the Falls restaurant and catering-based activities there, and $919,434.68 from its free-standing snack booths, two gift and souvenir shops and Cave of the Winds food court in the park, for total revenues that month alone of over $1.2 million.
According to “Open Book New York,” a service of the Office of the State Comptroller, Delaware North entered into a $10.2 million agreement with the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation commencing on July 1, 2002, to operate food, beverage and gift shop concessions in the Niagara Falls State Park, with a contract end date of Dec. 31, 2121.
Based on that contract, Delaware North tenders to New York State $523,076 a year for its monopoly rights to provide food service in Niagara Falls State Park, the oldest state park in the nation, which receives between eight and nine million visitors annually.
Therefore, Delaware North’s revenues from its operations in Niagara Falls State Park, for the past year, were nearly ten times over and above what it paid New York State over the same period.
The lucrative arrangement Delaware North has with the Albany-based State Parks agency rivals that which previously existed for James Glynn’s Maid of the Mist in the Niagara Falls State Park before investigative reporting by Publisher Frank Parlato blew the lid off that scam back in 2008. Maid leased the Observation Tower in the park as the base of its operations, and amazingly, by the terms of that contract, the taxpayers were paying James Glynn rent instead of the other way around.
Delaware North is a global food service and hospitality company headquartered in Buffalo, New York. The company also operates in the lodging, sporting, airport, gaming and entertainment spaces, employing over 55,000 people worldwide. Its total annual revenue exceeds $3 billion annually.
Delaware North is one of the largest privately-held business concerns in the world. It is solely owned and operated by the Jeremy M. Jacobs, Sr., family of East Aurora, NY.
According to Forbes Magazine, Jeremy Jacobs’ net worth is $4.4 billion, ranking him as the 156th richest man in the country.
