(Hauppauge, NY-December 12, 2013) Yesterday, the Long Island region was awarded $83 million in Regional Economic Development Awards. New York State’s Regional Councils were created by Governor Cuomo in 2011 in an effort to jumpstart the economy and create jobs. The initiative has redesigned the state's approach to economic development from a top-down model to a community-based, performance-driven approach where community, business and academic leaders develop strategic plans tailored to their region’s unique strengths and resources in order to spur economic development.
“I would like to thank the members of the Long Island’s Regional Economic Development Council for their steadfast commitment to supporting projects that will grow and strengthen Long Island’s Economy,” said County Executive Bellone.
Long Island was designated a Top Performer. Highlights of the 90 Suffolk County projects funded include:
· $2,000,000 to Stony Brook University to build a new Innovation and Discovery Facility designed to enhance the business recruitment power of START-UP NY and stimulate a public-private partnership for building construction.
· $2,000,000 to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) to renovate a facility and establish a Therapeutics Discovery Center, which will greatly accelerate translational research efforts at CSHL aimed at developing new therapeutics and diagnostics for cancer and neurological disorders.
· $2,000,000 to support high performance computing investments at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) as well as Hofstra University. Hofstra will create a Robotics Laboratory in the School of Engineering to support expanded enrollment, workforce demand, and burgeoning technologies including artificial intelligence, robotics and 3-D and 4-D printing, while BNL will acquire new high performance computing equipment for the benefit of scientific and industrial users across the region and state.
· $1,500,000 to Meadows at Yaphank-mixed use development comprised of residential, retail, office hospitality, parks and open space in Traditional Neighborhood Design.
· $1,000,000 to Brookhaven National Lab will expand 200 acre solar array to include a multi-region electric grid research test facility. The project includes a 1MW solar research array to be connected to the BNL electrical network.
· $1,000,000 to Islip Resource Recovery Agency This project will construct two compressed natural gas vehicle filling stations, including a fully- public, four-nozzle, fast fill station in Ronkonkoma, NY and a slow fill station in Oakdale, NY. This project is intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and expand the alternative fuel vehicle network in New York State.
· $285,000 to Long Island Wine Council- This program is a multimodal transportation and marketing initiative to generate visitor traffic from the NY metro area, east coast, national and international source markets during off-season and midweek periods. By opening the East End of Long Island to new customers from the NY metro area and other east coast population centers, we expect that this program will draw thousands of new visitors to the region.
· $997,000 to St. Joseph’s College-Renovation of a St. Joseph's College (SJC) building on its Patchogue Campus to create a Center for Hospitality and Tourism Management (HTM) in response to economic changes on Long Island and demand for trained hospitality professionals.
· $1,000,000 to Suffolk County Department of Public Works to Install sewer infrastructure in the Kings Park Central Business District for a 110 acre, 140 lot central business district area that is adjacent to a railroad station for Kings Park downtown business revitalization effort.
· $1,500,000 to Suffolk County Economic Development and Planning-Connect Long Island- This project will advance the creation of a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) demonstration corridor along a 17.2 mile roadway. Specific components of this project include the retrofit and branding of six buses, procurement of two new hybrid buses, construction of BRT stations, pedestrian infrastructure, signage, queue jumps, innovative technologies such as transit signal priority (TSP), pedestrian information displays, planning and design.
· $1,000,000 for continued infrastructure improvements at Wyandanch Rising, which is a comprehensive, community-based revitalization initiative transforming the most economically distressed community on Long Island into a model for community and economic revival, social and environmental justice, planning and design and public-private collaboration.
· $1,340,000 for infrastructure improvements at Enterprise Park in Calverton (EPCAL). The upgrade of the Calverton sewage treatment plant from secondary to tertiary treatment will provide both economic development and environmental benefits to this regionally significant project site with immediate potential for job creation benefits.
###