The Outside of the Apple

Overlooking Great Peconic Bay on the eastern end of Long Island, 728 acres (295 hectares) of the 2,900-acre (1,174-hectare) Calverton Enterprise Park are zoned for industrial use, but there is a proposal afoot to more than double that industrial space, pending state environmental quality review.
        Located in the Town of Riverhead, in Suffolk County, the site was formerly known as the Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant. It was assembled by the U.S. Navy in the 1950s, and leased to Grumman Corp. for final assembly and flight testing of military aircraft. The final F-14 flew away in 1995.
        An entertainment park, sports park and conference center are among the redevelopment plan's future amenities, as well as a 3,000-acre (1,214-hectare) non-developable preserve area surrounding the property. Inside, two runways and one rail spur are prominent features.
        Robert Kozakiewicz, town supervisor for the Town of Riverhead, says the recent approval of a master plan for land use will allow community leaders to re-focus on the environmental analysis needed for the re-zoning. Meanwhile, the core industrial area, owned by Jan Burman and other investors, is largely occupied, by tenants including a custom speed boat manufacturer, Reilly Woodworks and BMB Millwork. Another parcel is being improved for a SUNY-Stonybrook business incubator.
        Preliminary approval has been granted to develop another 2 million sq. ft. (185,800 sq. m.) of manufacturing and assembly space, which was to be in position to be sold by February 2004. "There has been interest from a number of businesses to go into that space," says Kozakiewicz.
        On the other side of the metro, longtime Chappaqua corporate denizen Reader's Digest decided early in 2004 to do some condensing of its own operations. Instead of moving its 690,000-sq.-ft. (64,101-sq.-m.) headquarters or subletting, it will conduct a sale and partial leaseback of the facility in order to more efficiently house its 800 workers and more effectively manage its assets. The company, which has been at the facility since it was built in 1939, expects to occupy less than half the space
        In nearby Rye Brook, Altria has also put its corporate property up for sale, but White Plains-based Snapple Beverage Group, in its merger with Stamford, Conn.-based Motts, Inc., will move into town, spending $10.9 million to renovate some 135,000 sq. ft. (12,542 sq. m.) of corporate headquarters space. The integration move will involve some 400 employees.

Meat and Claims Need Same Size
Projects In Western New York

A year of big blows to New York's landmark corporations left big bruises in Rochester and Syracuse, with huge work force reduction announcements by Kodak and Carrier. The film giant announced it would cut a fifth of its global work force and a third of its occupied space by 2007, and Carrier is moving air conditioner manufacturing off shore.
        Coming in to revive morale was homegrown grocery chain Wegman's, which moved up the timetable on its announcement precisely because of the recent bad news. The company will build a $40-million, 50,000-sq.-ft. (4,645-sq.-m.) meat processing center in Rochester to service stores in four states, retaining 330 of the 15,200 jobs the company provides to the area. While the facility could have gone to any of several areas, Chairman and CEO Robert Wegman said it came down to wanting manufacturing operations near headquarters. The state's $800,000 grant for the project helped too.
        In another long-anticipated announcement, Berkshire Hathaway's GEICO insurance company chose Amherst, in the Buffalo area, as the location for its own $40-million, 50,000-sq.-ft. (4,645-m.) project: a service center that will employ some 650 people at the outset. Plans call for the company to eventually construct a 250,000-sq.-ft. (23,225-sq.-m.) facility, and to employ some 2,500 people a decade from now. The Empire Zone program, under fire from critics over the past year for what some would call its elasticity, was seen as a crucial part of the decision because of that very flexibility. At least one of the richest men in America saw it that way.
        "Our move to Buffalo would not have happened without the terrific cooperation extended by Governor Pataki," said Warren E. Buffett, Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. In return for utilizing part of the Tonawanda Empire Zone at this new location, Amherst will dedicate a portion of tax proceeds from the project back to Tonawanda, via the Erie County Regional Redevelopment fund, to develop the North Youngmann Commerce Park, a 92-acre (37-hectare) parcel located adjacent to the Youngmann Highway (I-290).
        The Chevy Chase, Md.-based company already employs 3,300 New York residents, mostly at its regional office in Woodbury, Long Island.

See the SITES New Jersey Dept. of Economic Development www.state.nj.us/commerce NJ Dept of Labor www.nj.gov/labor Pennsylvania Dept. of Community and Economic Development www.inventpa.com Econsult Corp. www.econsult.com Allegheny Conference www.accdpel.org Penn's Northeast www.pennsnortheast.com Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce www.selectgreaterphiladelphia.com New York's Hudson Valley www.hvedc.com Connecticut Dept. of Community and Economic Development www.ct.gov/ecd

        "When we first started working with GEICO more than five years ago, the company was in the process of expanding its Woodbury operation," said Charles A. Gargano, Chairman of Empire State Development. "Realizing that GEICO would eventually reach capacity on Long Island, both the Governor and I kept in close contact with company officials with the hope that we could land a second operation in New York."
        Adding to Buffalo's stature, and no doubt adding to its general corporate appeal, is the $17-million Conference Center Niagara Falls, owned by USA Niagara Development Corp., a subsidiary of Empire State Development, and developed in partnership with private concern Sentry Hospitality. Besides the facility's projected related visitor spending, it also will employ 85 to 115 people while simultaneously enabling the city to pop up more often on meeting planners' site selection lists, sometimes the precursor to corporate visitors' own lists.

Big Plans for Big Parcel

If some dreamers in New York's Upstate Thoroughbred country have their way, the race for semiconductor superiority will also involve Saratoga. In the abutting towns of Malta and Stillwater, in Saratoga County, a contiguous 1,350-acre (546-hectare) site called Luther Forest Technology Park is being designed to attract high-tech manufacturers, and on the very ground where part of the U.S. space program (the Vanguard rocket engine) was launched. With 2,300 pages of environmental review under its belt, the site is on a path toward certification as a semiconductor manufacturing site. Currently in the midst of re-zoning, the site is 50-percent buffer – an important facet of the area's almost too-good-to-be-true quality of life.
        "In some cases I've lost a project because we had too good a quality of life," says Jack Kelly, senior vice president for the Saratoga Economic Development Corp., citing a plate glass manufacturer known for moving a third of a plant's work force every few years to another startup plant. "They were concerned they couldn't get them to move from this area," he says.
        He and others in the region hope that the state's heritage in high-tech innovation will be furthered by the combination of Luther Forest, an Empire Zone designation and the high-profile nanotech program at nearby SUNY-Albany. Already, the site is reaching the upper echelon in the companies' North American viewfinder, and Kelly says some competition would come from similar sites in Taiwan and Belgium. One big attraction is the total absence of federal or state wetlands on the entire property – almost unheard of, and therefore heard very well. Equally notable for its rarity is bipartisan political support for the project at the state level.
        Kelly says the natural ravines on the parcel divide it conveniently into pods, with Pod 1, some 600-800 acres (243-324 hectares), soon to be set for development and marketing to the nanotechnology industry. Some project that the 25-year build-out of Luther Forest might yield 15 times what the area has lured in the past 25 years, with the potential of some 10,000 jobs. Kelly says the global competition is, of course, stiff. But there is some momentum toward bringing semiconductor manufacturing back to U.S. shores, and in that vein, thorough environmental review is a strong incentive in its own right.
        "The land talks to you," he says. "It tells you what can go there."