Municipal PR: Cortlandt and Yonkers launch marketing plans
If Frank Sinatra could sing the praises of his kind of town, Chicago, along with New York, New York, and Tony Bennett could sing the praises of San Francisco, it follows that local officials would want to sing the praises of their own communities, which his exactly what”™s happening in the town of Cortlandt and the city of Yonkers, among others.
Cortlandt has embarked on a marketing campaign to expand existing businesses and attract new ones. The effort includes a new logo for the town, web pages and a new brochure touting its attributes that are advantageous for business development. The new economic development slogan is “Where life works.”
The campaign”™s web pages point out that the town has $160 million in investments and capital projects, a balanced budget, has preserved and added more than 3,000 acres of open space and that consumer spending within a 10-mile radius of the center of Cortlandt totals nearly $1 billion a year.
Among those involved in the branding and marketing program is George Oros, who is Cortland”™s economic development consultant and lives in the town. Oros served as director of economic development for Westchester County under former County Executive Rob Astorino and previously had served as a county legislator and chairman of the County Board of Legislators.
Town Supervisor Linda Puglisi, now in her 29th year in the office, said that she, Oros, the town”™s staff and members of the town board stand ready to meet on short notice with any business person interested in coming to the town or expanding an existing business.
“We have a large town. We”™re 32 square miles, way over 30,000 individuals, 16,000 tax parcels and about 200 small businesses,” Puglisi told the Business Journal. “Way before the pandemic, even before the closure of Indian Point, we started talking about branding, marketing, because a good portion of the community is residential, and we love it that way, but we”™re always looking for ratables.” She characterized Cortlandt as a “hidden gem unfamiliar to many in the New York metropolitan area.”
She said that three years ago they were told by Entergy, the owners of Indian Point, and by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, that the nuclear power station would be closing its doors.
“The nuclear plants have been our largest taxpayer and our largest employer over the decades, and that”™s almost five decades now. A thousand-plus permanent, good-paying jobs at Indian Point will be gone. Whether or not the decommissioning company will hire some of them back is an unknown,” Puglisi said. “The taxes will go way down. There are 240 acres on the campus of Indian Point, physically located in the village of Buchanan, but the village of Buchanan also is part of the town of Cortlandt.”
Puglisi noted that the Hendrick Hudson School District receives $24 million a year in tax payments from Indian Point, one-third of the annual income. Buchanan receives almost 50% of its $7 million budget from the nuclear station. Cortland receives about 2% of its annual budget in taxes from Indian Point, about $800,000.
“It has kind of been an engine that”™s driven the economic encouragement in our community even though we were talking about branding way before,” Puglisi said. “We”™re looking at anyone who is interested in coming here in the proper locations. We have a lot of properties … that could be developed or redeveloped, re-energized for business and then we have some properties that are vacant land.”
Puglisi said that the budget for the branding and marketing effort would be no more than about $75,000. She emphasized that the new slogan, “Where life works,” creates a positive image that encompasses the residential and business benefits Cortlandt offers. Puglisi said that she and the town”™s staff are ready to welcome business people for tours of the area.
“We”™re business friendly. We”™ll do what we can to help move things along,” Puglisi said.
Down the Hudson River in Yonkers, the city used moving into phase four of the state”™s COVID-19 economic reopening plan as an opportunity to launch a marketing campaign titled “Yonkers is Back to Business!” Mayor Mike Spano, other city officials and business leaders gathered outside of city hall to announce launching the campaign that was developed by the public relations, marketing and advertising agency Thompson & Bender, which is based in Briarcliff Manor.
Elizabeth Bracken-Thompson, a partner Thompson & Bender, told the gathering that the goal of the campaign, which is the next iteration of the seven-year “Generation Yonkers” marketing campaign, is to position the city as the major pro-business location in the New York metro market.
“The campaign has two target audiences: New York City-based companies looking for satellite office locations within Westchester County and the general public who are looking for great places to live, to work and to play and so many of Yonkers”™ great restaurants, retail stores, food stores, consumer goods, hotels museums and places to live and to stay are featured,” Bracken-Thompson said.
“This has been a tough pandemic. Yonkers was hit especially hard,” Spano told the Business Journal. “The economic development that was planned, that was in the ground, has come back to life. There are people here and they are building buildings, building structures. Restaurants are opening. Restaurants now have to change their business dynamics, they”™re in the streets, and so all across the city we can actually go and spend a nice night under the stars and have dinner anywhere in our city.”
Spano said that United Parcel Service coming to town in a 435,000-square-foot distribution center on Tuckahoe Road has been a major plus.
Among the representatives of businesses in Yonkers at the event were: Brian Cannon, North Atlantic district president of UPS; Rory Dolan, owner of Rory Dolan”™s Restaurant & Bar in Yonkers; Jennifer Ann Sefara Perry, CEO and founder of Sacred Seeds; real estate developer and owner of the Hampton Inn & Suites in Yonkers, Alan Weissman; Peter X. Kelly, whose Xaviars Restaurant Group includes X2O Xaviars on the Hudson in Yonkers; and Stew Leonard Jr., president and CEO of Stew Leonard”™s
“Stew Leonard”™s has been open from day one and we”™ve seen a tremendous pickup in the volume because restaurants were closed and schools were closed,” Leonard told the Business Journal. “You have to do the triple-cleaning. You have to have everybody in your store wear masks or your salon or whatever, restaurant, and you really have to practice social distancing and have plenty of saniwipes and hand sanitizer around your facility because what the goal is is to make the customer feel comfortable.”
Leonard said that he tells the employees at his stores that the stores are the cleanest place they can be all day. He said that all businesses reopening right now should keep one goal in mind: “Make the customer feel comfortable.”