Bed Bath & Beyond move to N.J. costs 340 LI jobs

Buybuy Baby's Garden City headquarters and Bed Bath & Beyond's Farmingdale office will relocate to its parent company's corporate Union, N.J., base by September 2012.

Bed Bath & Beyond Inc., which owns Buybuy Baby, announced its plans to employees Wednesday and cited strategic business reasons for the move.

All of the approximately 340 employees affected by the move "have been offered the opportunity to relocate and work in the new location," said Bari Fagin, Bed Bath & Beyond spokeswoman.

"This transition is being made with both offices to further improve the communication, collaboration, coordination and execution across all our concepts, activities and platforms, and to better leverage internal and external resources to support the continuing growth of our company," Fagin said.

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority has approved an $8.5-million Business Employment Incentive Program grant for Bed Bath & Beyond to move 340 jobs to its Union headquarters. The anticipated average wage is $100,000, according to agency's approval documents.

Among the program's requirements, a business must show that "the grant is a 'material' factor in moving the job expansion or relocation forward in New Jersey, and that it is economically viable," according to the agency's website.

Once the grant application is approved, it is the company's choice to accept it, an agency spokeswoman said.

Fagin said she could not speak to the grant but stressed that the decision to relocate the offices was based on business strategy.

"Both states offered comparable incentives, but that was not the basis of the decision," she said.