Coalition sees progress

The Westchester Coalition for Business Development expects to report in March on its survey of young professionals and what is needed to curb “youth flight” from the county.

A wide-ranging economic development initiative launched last year by The Business Council of Westchester, the coalition this month held a series of focus groups with professionals under the age of 35 “to assess what we need to do to keep young professionals in Westchester,” said Business Council President and CEO Marsha Gordon.

“The priorities for that group are different” than those of the baby boom generation, said Tim Jones, coalition chairman and managing director of Robert Martin Co. in Elmsford. “They seem to place a very high priority on open space and community areas where they can have more direct interaction with people.”

Stopping Westchester”™s youth flight was one of the short-term goals identified by the coalition in its inaugural report last July on strategies to retain existing businesses and attract new ones to the county.

Another short-term goal, creating a central internship clearinghouse to link businesses with students at colleges and universities in the county, is expected to be implemented in May with the launch of an internship clearinghouse website, Gordon said. The clearinghouse will be operated by the Westchester-Putnam Workforce Investment Board.

“This is something that”™s important to the business community, to the educational community, and to show young people in Westchester the opportunities that are here in Westchester,” Gordon said. “The universities are very much on board with that.”

Jones said the coalition also will work to educate community organizations on the benefits of redeveloping the county”™s oversupply of commercial office properties for mixed uses. Developer Robert Weinberg, a founding partner of Robert Martin Co., one of the county”™s first office-park developers, will lead that effort with initial presentations to school boards, Jones said.

The coalition also will focus on workforce housing in the county as “a business issue” that affects companies”™ ability to retain and recruit employees, Gordon said.

The coalition also plans to participate in the second-year work of the state”™s Mid-Hudson Regional Economic Development Council. Gordon, appointed by Gov. Cuomo to the regional council in 2011, said the coalition”™s aim in reaching out to the regional group is “making sure that we have great projects to put forth for funding” by state agencies in 2012.

One proposed project, a business incubator for biotechnology companies on the Valhalla campus of New York Medical College, in December was awarded a $4 million state grant in the first round of regionally coordinated funding.

Jones said the coalition will continue to back the growth of a biotech industry cluster in Westchester and the Hudson Valley region and identify and support other industry clusters, including the recently formed Hudson Valley Food and Beverage Alliance.