JANUARY 18,2013
ROCHESTER BUSINESS JOURNAL I RBJDAILY.COM
PAGE 15
Region's unified effort won state development competition
ast year at this time, many of us were
scratching our heads, wondering how
Rochester could not have been chosen
as one of the four winners of the state's regional economic development council competition. After all, our strategic plan met
the judgment criteria outlined by the state,
enjoyed broad community support and offered a solid blueprint for job creation.
It would have been easy to get discouraged and view last year's fifth-place finish as a setback. Instead, thanks largely to
the leadership of co-chairmen Joel Seligman and Danny Wegman, our council redoubled its efforts and developed an even
stronger submission. The result is that on
Dec. 19, the Finger Lakes region received
the top award in the state, $96.2 million.
I believe the success of this past year's
effort can be traced to four factors: the
strength and thoroughness of the strategic
framework; a high level of regional collaboration in the development of our plan;
the leveraging of private money to support
many of the projects; and a continued focus on investments that will create jobs.
The award will be spread across 76 projects in our region that are projected to create more than 50,000 jobs in the coming
years. A quick snapshot of some of the
larger projects includes:
• $5 million for the Health Sciences
Center for Computational Innovation, a
partnership between the University of
Rochester and IBM;
L
ON BUSINESS
• $5 million for Rochester Institute of
Technology's Golisano Institute for Sustainability;
• $2 million for the PathStone Finger
Lakes Enterprise Fund;
• $4 million for the adaptive reuse of
Midtown Tower as mixed commercial, office and residential space;
• $4 million to complete College Town,
a comprehensive plan to redevelop 16
acres in the city near the University of
Rochester's River Campus;
• $600,000 for the Multiple Pathways
to Middle Skills Jobs project, an innovative approach to workforce development;
• $2.5 million for the Finger Lakes
Business Accelerator Cooperative, which
will support the creation and growth of
early-stage companies;
• $500,000 for the Science Technology
and Advanced Manufacturing Park project;
• $125,000 for the SenecaAgBio Green
Energy Park;
• $1.15 million for the projects advanced as part of the Finger Lakes Small
Business Expansion Fund; and
• $2.4 million for two projects that will be
at the Eastman Business Park: NOMS Technologies Inc. and Graphene Devices Ltd.
Development of this year's winning proposal reinforced the need to cooperate and
collaborate. To be successful, we had to
put our individual agendas aside to develop a plan that would serve all nine Finger
Lakes counties.
During one of the project reports to the
Finger Lakes Regional Economic Development Council, a presenter spoke about
munities more job-competitive.
For those wondering what's on the horizon for our regional council, a hint at the
community's next challenge was introduced in the Gov. Andrew Cuomo's State
of the State speech last week. The "Innovation Hot Spots" competition promises to
spur economic growth by creating tax-free
zones and providing funding for startup
companies. Each regional economic development council across the state will designate a higher-education/private-sector
incubator program as the innovation hot
spot for the region and will compete to be
named one of 10 overall winners, five in
The success of this past year's
the first year.
The incubators will foster innovation
effort can be traced to several
by offering inventors and entrepreneurs a
factors, including a high level
low-cost and supportive environment in
which to work. Rochester has a rich hisof regional collaboration.
tory of innovation leadership, and this new
program promises to accelerate the tranthe collaborative approach that competing sition from research and development to
organizations in her committee had ad- commercialization and job creation.
opted to develop their proposal. She used
Perseverance and coopetition paid off
the term "coopetition" to describe their ap- in this past year's regional economic deproach. "Coopetition" may not be in any · velopment council competition. Congratdictionary, but it is a useful coinage. In a ulations to the Finger Lakes region for a
relationship of coopetition, organizations well-earned win. Now we are on to our
can be fierce competitors and still work next challenge, to be named one of the five
together for a common good. This is the innovation hot spots in the state. Our comessence of the regional council process- munity is on a roll, and I like our chances.
getting regions across the state to work
Sandra Parker is president and CEO
together to develop economic development of the Rochester Business Alliance Inc.
strategies that make them and their com- Contact her at SandyP@RBAlliance.com.
For sticky tax issues, you might need to seek tax agencies' guidance
T
he tax code may be long, but there are
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If your business faces an issue that is
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TAXING MATTERS
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ry opinion, the state tax department posts
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ticular industry segments affected by these
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There are many unanswered questions
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