LEDA allows public support of qualified economic development projects for existing expanding companies as well as newly recruited ones to foster, promote, and enhance local economic development efforts while continuing to protect against the unauthorized use of public money and other public resources. This empowers communities to embark on economic development projects tailored to their LOCAL needs. In essence, LEDA is used to enter into a “public private partnership” for an economic benefit. LEDA can be used to reimburse eligible expenses for hard assets. The City also can act as the fiscal agent for State funds contributed to a qualified project.

Eligible expenses may include:

• Purchase, lease, grant, construction, reconstruction, improvement or other acquisition or conveyance of land, buildings or infrastructure; public works improvements essential to the location or expansion of a qualifying entity;
• Provision of loans/grants for land, buildings or infrastructure;
• Purchase of land for a publicly held industrial park;

Construction of a building for use by a qualifying entity manufacturing, assembling, processing projects

Qualifying entities include:

• Warehousing, distributing, wholesaling
• A business that supplies services to the general public or government agency or a specific industry or customer, but not retail
• Telecommunications sales enterprise that makes the majority of its sales outside NM (customer service, back office)
• Business that is the developer of a metropolitan redevelopment project
  Certain cultural facilities