If the mid-Hudson region wants to field a winning team on the global economic field, it had better start kicking in unison. And Albany needs a reminder that the state”™s fastest-growing region needs its support.
So said Anthony Campagiorni, executive director of the Hudson Valley Economic Development Corporation, as he delivered a no-punches-pulled presentation to a packed house at the Poughkeepsie Grand on April 16.
He may not be Houdini, but Campagiorni knows a thing or two about putting broken pieces back together. Prior to the formation of the Hudson Valley EDC in 2003, he was the director of World Trade Center Business Recovery. When September 11 changed the face of New York, Campagiorni worked to put thousands of small business owners back on their feet.
His new charge is to wrestle Westchester, Rockland, Dutchess, Putnam, Orange, Sullivan, Ulster, Greene and Columbia counties into a dynamic partnership. But Campagiorni told his for-profit and nonprofit business audience it”™s a challenge only his listeners can help him meet. His advice: stop thinking “home rule” and start thinking “nobody”™s fool,” with the nine counties working as if they were a single entity, creating a crescendo audible to Albany”™s ears.
Why has the Hudson Valley been forgotten by state lawmakers and power brokers? asked Campagiorni rhetorically.
The Hudson Valley “isn”™t heard in the capital … and it doesn”™t have to be that way. Long Island”™s delegation has lawmakers listening. Why? They have worked together to form a powerful lobbying group, putting aside petty squabbling over which county should have more say and who should get more credit; they are one voice. It”™s a powerful one, and it”™s gotten them attention. We need the same kind of cooperative collaboration here.”
Campagiorni travels the nation, talking to site selectors and pitching the positives of the Hudson Valley as a place to move their businesses or to expand existing ones. He”™s even brought a Culinary Institute of America master chef with him on some of his brokering trips to introduce potential prospects to the “flavor” of the region. Nevertheless, said the HVEDC director, it”™s a difficult sale: “We do not have a single Center of Excellence in the Hudson Valley, similar to those that exist elsewhere in the state. We do not have enough new inventory to make business want to move here, and we don”™t enjoy a strong partnership with New York state.”
Campagiorni said the region”™s aging, empty buildings are a major negative: Only four new projects have been constructed since 1990, including the recently completed Oakwood Common in Poughkeepsie. Nearly three million square feet of currently unoccupied space is functionally obsolete, according to HVEDC”™s analyses. Adaptive re-use may be feasible at times, but overall, the space is largely ineffective and ultimately more expensive than starting anew. At least three new business parks are needed to make the Hudson Valley a quality, top contender for those higher-paying white-collar jobs and high-tech companies. Campagiorni encouraged the notion that business be brought into whatever county makes the most sense for the prospect, and to put competition aside for the greater good of the region.
“Jobs and rateables are what we need, not fighting over which county will get the business,” he said. “We need to be together on this. Ultimately, we all win. Jobs will grow here, not be outsourced.”
To highlight what”™s needed to be a business attractor, Campagiorni pointed to the city of Stamford, Conn., which has built four million square feet of class-A space in the past 10 years. “When someone comes to the Hudson Valley, we need to offer similar options. We are marketing 1,068 shovel-ready acres of land, yet there is not one ”˜greenfield”™ site in the entire region that would meet the demands of a high tech user. It is our good fortune to have a world-renowned high-tech company located right here: IBM. We need to build on that and keep building,” even if it means taking some of these old buildings down and working in private-public partnerships to make it happen. “Seventy-million is being spent on projects around Albany. We can make it hard to be ignored if we start speaking as one entity.”
While other areas of the state are receiving needed financial attention, the Hudson Valley, said Campagiorni, is just “falling more slowly to the bottom.” Mush of the regional population of 2.3 million people leaves every day to work at points south: 73 percent of Putnam residents travel outside their county to work each day. Campagiorni”™s goal is to see more people staying within the HVEDC region and attract companies that bring in those high-paying jobs that are now going elsewhere. “We can make that happen if we start thinking of ourselves as a single region and market ourselves as such,” he said.
“The ”˜Unshackle New York”™ upstate program is a good role model for the Hudson Valley. We have an intelligent workforce, a great location and the transportation infrastructure. New York City is going to be a winner in the global economy; we are positioned right on its doorstep and directly in the center of the Boston-to-Washington, D.C., corridor.”
When you combine those factors, the Hudson Valley should become a desired destination for business, said Campagiorni. “We can”™t make that happen unless we are willing to work together.”
Is it possible for 250 municipalities to swallow their home-rule pride and start working together for the common good? Is refusing to consolidate services helping in the long run?
Campagiorni said without intermunicipal cooperation and consolidation, the Hudson Valley will continue to lose its population and the ability to attract quality jobs “not just to other states, but to other countries. We”™re not losing jobs to Pennsylvania; we”™re losing them to Dresden, Germany.”
The Hudson Valley faces some vexing challenges: the lack of affordable housing and the increasing property tax burden on homeowners and businesses.
Pattern for Progress plans to hold a housing symposium on June 11 to brainstorm ideas to bring housing into the market and changing the NIMBY mentality of those 250 municipalities. As far as taxes are concerned, “It is up to our state lawmakers to fix the property tax problem,” said Campagiorni. “There is nothing we can really do to change the formula, but they are well aware something must be done. We can make them even more aware by speaking with one voice.”
Several of the region”™s chambers, industrial development agencies and local economic development corporations plan to form a coalition to get more grease out of Albany for the Hudson Valley”™s squeaky wheel, and John D”™Ambrosio, Orange County Chamber of Commerce president, is putting the group together. Campagiorni believes the nine-county region can do it ”“ if the counties are willing to embrace a cooperative attitude and then act on it.
