Westchester has an opportunity to get ahead of the perfect storm.
The county is harboring a lot of vacant space ”“ 6 million square feet at last count. The unemployment rate stands at 6.7 percent, the lowest in two years but still too high. The construction industry has been pummeled. Much of the commercial work has dried up and public works projects have stalled. The money just is not there.
Simultaneously, one sector has taken root here and is quickly, albeit quietly, branching out.
Biotechnology companies continue to invest in the county, through jobs creation and expansions.
The most recent example involves the Ardsley Park and Science and Technology Center on Saw Mill River Road in Greenburgh. The site remains largely vacant since OSI Pharmaceuticals canceled plans to relocate there last year. On a recent stormy morning the site was eerie as bare tree branches loomed ominously over a ghost campus.
That could all change soon.
As reported by John Golden this week, BioMed Realty Trust, which owns The Landmark at Eastview, is expected to buy the property from Japan”™s Astellas Pharma Inc. And, Acorda Therapeutics of Hawthorne is eyeing the site for a $27.9-million relocation and expansion of its headquarters. The drugmaker plans to move 159 employees to Ardsley and later add some 190 biotech jobs ”“ with an average annual salary of $120,000.
Now we”™re talking.
In other developments, New York Medical College is converting a vacant lab on its Valhalla campus into a regional R&D center for disaster medicine. And it is seeking the addition of a private-sector biotech incubator there, as well.
Earlier this year, Contrafect Corp., an early-stage biotech company, signed a 15-year lease at i.park Hudson and plans to move its 200 workers to Yonkers from Manhattan. It will join Aureon Labs, a life-sciences company, in the 1.1-million-square-foot mixed-use facility.
These are among a growing list of biotech, biopharmaceutical and life-sciences companies growing and expanding in Westchester.
The landscape here is changing. Biotech is taking hold. This presents an extraordinary opportunity for Westchester to rethink and reprioritize. How can the county exploit this?
“In the past, Westchester has had several kinds of start-and-stop efforts to create a biotech cluster and they never really gelled,” Larry Gottlieb, director of Economic Development for Westchester County, explained in an interview with the Business Journal earlier this year.
Still, he noted, biotech firms “organically kind of grew here.” The reason being the county”™s availability of good lab space at cheaper rates than New York City, a quality workforce and excellent medical schools and colleges.
Last fall, the county launched a three-year, $300,000 marketing campaign titled “Westchester County ”“ New York”™s Intellectual Capital.” The idea was to pitch the county”™s brain-power, rather than its picturesque scenery and lush golf courses.
The county also linked up with the private-public BioHud Valley marketing initiative. Led by the Hudson Valley Economic Development Corp. in New Windsor, the goal is to promote and develop the seven-county region as the biotech industry”™s East Coast epicenter.
“(BioHud) locked perfectly in with the umbrella concept of Westchester being New York”™s ”˜intellectual capital,”™” Gottlieb said.
And going solo would not have been wise, he said.
“The reality of today”™s marketplace is that if we don”™t work together and market this cluster as a region we”™re not going to get the attention of the state or the federal government.
“For Westchester, there”™s still that stigma that, even in this horrendous economy, the county has done much better than most. Our employment numbers aren”™t as bad, we still have a tremendous amount of wealth. So to say, ”˜Could you make an investment in our biotech cluster? A lot of officials would say ”˜There are some parts of the state that are in much worse shape that we”™re going to work on.”™ So when we decided to join forces it became helping the entire region ”¦ and this effort has grown tremendously and continues to grow and really has put us on the map.”
The region houses 86 biotech companies that employ some 11,000 residents. And, close to 20 percent of the biotech workforce in New York ”“ 8,000 people ”“ works in Westchester. To top it off, officials say biotech businesses created some 1,000 jobs last year.
Back to Valhalla. The medical college has received financial backing from the state to help develop the Hudson Valley Biotechnology Center for Disaster Medicine and Emerging Infections.
Now the college is seeking state and federal monies for the project”™s second phase ”“ an $11.5-million redevelopment of incubator lab and R&D space for private companies.
U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer is backing the effort. In fact, the state”™s senior Democrat says he wants the see federal funding for the biotech center.
“When a new threat appears on the horizon, I want the vaccine, the antidote or the cures being produced right here in the Hudson Valley,” Schumer said.
And why not right here in Westchester?
There”™s no shortage of space or talent here. What the county needs is more creative thinking in the public and private sectors ”“ and more federal and state dollars to help fuel that creativity. Let”™s be frank: This creativity will require money.
Could biotech be the vaccine?
We”™ll see in time. But it certainly is giving Westchester a much needed economic shot in the arm.
