Iona College officials plan to make the school”™s new business analytics institute at the Hagan School of Business the focus of partnerships with private high-tech companies as part of the state”™s Start-Up NY program to attract new businesses and help existing ones expand or relocate in tax-free zones at academic campuses across the state.
The Catholic university recently was named the second private institution in Westchester County ”“ and the second in New Rochelle – to participate in the fledgling program, which was initially designed to stimulate a new wave of high-tech economic development and create good-paying jobs in struggling upstate communities. The College of New Rochelle in August was included in the tax incentives program, which was proposed and aggressively pursued by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and authorized by the state Legislature in 2013.
Companies whose businesses missions and activities align with the academic mission of the school sponsoring a Start-Up NY zone will pay no state taxes for 10 years. Their employees will pay no state personal income taxes for the first five years in the campus zone. For the second five years, workers will pay no state taxes on annual income up to $200,000 for individuals, $250,000 for a head of household and $300,000 for taxpayers filing a joint return.
At public and private academic institutions in Westchester and New York City and on Long Island, eligible businesses must be in the formative stage of development or engaged in the design, development and introduction of new biotechnology, information technology, remanufacturing, advanced materials processing, engineering or electronic technology products or innovative manufacturing processes.
“The Business Analytics Institute is really going to be our focus in terms of potential partnerships,” said Dan Konopka, director of corporate, foundation and government relations at Iona. The first focus will be health care analytics, he said. Both the Business Analytics Institute and a Center for Health Care Analytics were launched earlier this year in the Hagan School of Business.
Konopka in the school”™s plan presented to state officials said the school will form business partnerships “with the prospect of breaking new ground in the area of large data-driven analytics.” After the initial focus on health care analytics, the school will look to apply business, the sciences and cybersecurity analytics in its future partnerships.
Iona College President Joseph E. Nyre said the Start-Up NY program is an opportunity for Iona to create partnerships “that improve the vitality of the community and the vitality of the college.” In a press release announcing the program, Nyre said the interaction with business enterprises “will have a positive impact on our students and faculty, creating resources of business expertise and internship possibilities for our students” and a “natural synergy” with the two analytics centers at the Hagan School.
The college will make available for Start-Up NY companies a total of approximately 9,000 square feet of third-floor space in the business school building, Hagan Hall, and McSpedon Hall, the main administration building. Nyre said that space is available on the urban campus because of Iona”™s acquisition of commercial and residential space in the surrounding New Rochelle neighborhood during his administration that has increased its physical land assets by 30 percent.
Regarding recruitment of businesses for the start-up zone, Konopka said “We”™re not pursuing them at this point. They”™re coming to us.”
Iona officials in their proposal to the state said the college has been in discussions with two potential business partners that had considered relocating their operations outside New York “until this opportunity arose.” One is interested in partnering with Iona”™s Center for Health Care Analytics to facilitate the discovery and development of biomarkers, molecular diagnostics and personalized therapies. The second is in the business of “high-scale web mining,” used by companies to extract valuable information from an unlimited number of websites, Iona officials said.
