S2,E23 - 2024 Highlights

This is Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank, a semi-monthly podcast by CenterState CEO, Central New York's premier leadership and economic development organization. Join us as we meet the people and explore the projects driving the regional economy forward. This is Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank. I'm Katie Zilcosky, your host of Talk CNY, and director of communications at CenterState CEO. We are now in the last month of 2024, and a lot has happened this year, so you'd be easily forgiven if you forgot or maybe missed out on some of the great work that's been done. On the season of Talk CNY, we've had the privilege to discuss all of this progress with our partners as well as our talented and thoughtful colleagues here at CenterState CEO. They've all helped us better understand the work and how it's impacting the people in our community, but the year's long and we are all busy.

So you may have missed an episode or two along the way. That's okay. On this episode of Talk CNY, we are going to look back at some of this season's highlights. We're going to start with an episode that we aired back in February, the NUAIR Center of Excellence at Syracuse Hancock International Airport had its official ribbon cutting ceremony this November, but our team here at Talk CNY visited earlier in the year to sit down and talk with CEO and president Ken Stewart. Ken explained why the space is special and why Central New York is emerging as a leader in the field of uncrewed aerial systems and advanced air mobility.

Ken: Most people know NUAIR for managing the test site at Griffiss for the last 10 years, and there's a huge benefit. We have a great reputation from doing that. So coming here to Syracuse, they already have integrated airspace with the 174th flying, the MQ-9's and military drones. So now we're fully integrated. We have commercial, military and commercial traffic here all flying off at this location.

Katie: Wow. Syracuse at large though the area, Central New York, the region. Why is this such a great space for the technology?

Ken: People don't realize how progressive we are here and how forward leaning we are with aviation. We have GENIUS NY, we have Tech Garden, we have NUAIR. All these capabilities are helping us develop an ecosystem. So one of the other benefits to opening the Center of Excellence here is all the technology you see in here are all companies that have come to the UAS Jobs Fund, GENIUS NY program or residents of Tech Garden or New York-based. So it really is about cultivating all the technology and the companies are coming here from international locations to be here because this is kind of the hub. And so they can now come here, be based here and get their technology up and running in a commercial aspect. So it's not just about getting drones flying, it's about getting drones technology adopted. It's getting the companies to relocate here to get manufacturing technology, software development, aerospace engineers to really get that core relocating to this area and really building this economy soup to nuts. The program that we're doing with Le Moyne now puts students through a program where they can come out and start joining the drone economy, working for the Department of Transportation, the Throughway Authority, and some of the other agencies that we're working with. So we're really looking at this really as a kind of cradle to grave is how do we get the entire industry really centrally located here for the things that we're doing.

Now you mentioned Advanced Air Mobility or AAM, you at NUAIR are now working with the US Air Force Innovation arm and NASA to establish a digital operations center here in this space. Can you break that down for me? What does that mean? I mean, what kind of technology are you looking at to advance?

Sure. So we look at a bunch of technology. We don't specifically get aircraft. That's what the technology. We do have aircraft flying within our operational area, but we really focus on airspace integration. So how are we going to manage or support managing this next generation of aviation in the national airspace, safely integrating both drones and new advanced air mobility? So what do we do? We help integrate these typical activities, the technologies, so that we can perform that safe integration. So our BVLOS operation, there's 240 miles. We're able to integrate that into the national airspace. So where you see commercial aircraft, general aviation, the drones can actually fly integrated with that airspace. And so what the Air Force came here and found out was it's very challenging to get companies onto military bases, getting them access, especially we have five different technologies all integrated. Getting all of those five companies to be coordinated and through the security process is really a challenge for them.

Therefore, by coming here, not only do you have NUAIR and the technology up and running, they can actually integrate other technologies and really learn about the technology before they look to integrate it. The other piece is we've got the 174th here, which is a great asset for us to integrate with. They help facilitate some of that process with AppWorks. So really this has started to become the destination for all things kind of advanced their mobility for the Air Force or AppWorks in terms of how they expect to manage this type of air traffic moving forward.

Katie: In the spring, we had the chance to not only talk to entrepreneur, Durin Leckie, but we also got to visit him and his team as they worked on a site, a house in the city of Syracuse. Durin immigrated to the region from Jamaica and he started a construction business. Ali Fix It. On his episode of Talk CNY, Durin talked to us about how working with CenterState CEO helped to level up his business.

Durin: Alright, so working with CenterState CEO, this is where my whole construction journey revolutionized and this comes down through the same Jessica Vinciguerra. She introduced me to Erik. Yeah. And Erik is my guy.

Katie: And he was on the episode before you. He also gave us your name. You guys are..

Durin: Yeah. He's my guy. EriK. Yes. EriK held my hands. Yeah. Literally, that guy literally held my hands and directed me

step-by step. So everything that he want me to do, he directed me to an accountant. He directed me to systems just to help me to navigate. He directed me to funding to help me buy different tools that I needed. So I told him that, alright Eric, I started to do these city contracts, but I have to come up front with the capital to purchase materials and labor. So he was like, okay, alright. So I was saying that I wanted a loan. So he was telling me about the Growth and Equity Fund, and he said that I need all the different documentation and stuff like that. We've been working on that for months and while it was processing and stuff like that, he kind of tailor me in the direction as to what I need to do. So for getting my taxes, because that is important, get my taxes from my accountant, make sure that I have a tax return, show that process. I get all the information and I send it to the underwriters. But before I had the meeting with the underwriter, he will be the person to give me Ian and Andrew

and those two guys,

Katie: They helped you get through the loan process.

Durin: Yes, because they ushered me through the process. They trained me first. They were kind of serious and said, Hey, ask me the questions regarding my business. What are the goals of my business? What's the revenue? How long does it take for me to get paid from the city whenever I do a job? Or what is that, the time between the start and the finish date. All of those, that is what exactly those guys from the underwriters asked me.

Katie: So they give you great preparation.

Durin: Yes, and ushering. I was honored to get the (Growth and Equity Fund). I don't know if I'm the first,

Katie: You were one of the first group of them.

Durin: I was grateful because what it does, it helps me to kind of have leverage in the company now instead of scrapping. Because before I got that funding, I was working. I usually use jobs to take care of the city jobs. So I remember while they were doing, I remember doing four bathrooms all at once because I wanted to make sure I had enough money to pay my guys or I have enough money to buy materials. So when I start working at nine and I finish at 5:30 / 6 p.m., I leave from there. I reach my next job at seven at night, and I work until about one in the morning. And I've done that long. I've done that for months. Since I got the Growth and Equity Fund, what CEO gave me, in that sense, it has been a life changer. A business changer.

Katie: Yeah. It gives you that capital to not have to do bathrooms until 1:00 AM.

Durin: Yeah, that's true.

Katie: CenterState CEOs Housing Task Force released policy recommendations this spring. They advocate for practical solutions that will help this community address some of its housing challenges, task Force co-chairs, Andy Breuer and Jo Anne Gagliano joined the podcast to break down those recommendations and explain why we need action now.

Jo Anne: The first one you alluded to earlier, kind of yes, for our backyard and our neighborhood. We really need to advocate for this kind of housing, which is what we've had historically as the cities grow. This was the number one to us as the most important because we have to kind of get over that hurdle. Now, again, there are communities that are doing this, and I feel as if we can focus on those communities that are already ready to do that and understanding how to do that and build upon their existing infrastructure, that's a real plus. So I think that's why that landed first.

Andy: Yeah, I can't remember which number it was, but certainly the focus on blended affordability and inclusivity to the credit of both our City of Syracuse IDA and the Onondaga County IDA. They now have pilot programs where they're trying to incentivize the developers who are doing the right thing to incorporate percentages of affordability into the unit mix. That's the right way to do it. You're trying to dilute the poverty. The term we say is no poor floors or poor doors. The best way to deal with poverty is to really look at affordability, look at percentages of what should be attainable and projects that get public incentive. So that's a big part, I think, of where we need to go with the education piece and the advocacy piece now to make that explained on a regionwide level.

Jo Anne: Yeah, the capital availability, that's the big one, right? That's the elephant in the room.

Andy: Back to the pro-housing communities, right? $650 million statewide. That's not chump change. So how do we access it?

Jo Anne: Yeah, and also I think this opportunity with Micron coming into the area, perhaps it's going to help with some of the lending because the risk is less in some ways than it has been in the past. So kind of leveraging that. But that is one area where I think it's going to take a lot of leadership, vision, and collaboration and working across party lines and getting into state and federal areas because that's the hard one in my opinion.

Andy: But we did have lenders and credit unions as part of that committee, and there's frustration on their behalf that just because of balance sheets and ratios, there's not a lot of developer-led real estate lending out there. A lot of banks have almost moratoriums on that type of lending right now. So it's going to be some time, I think, and still it's kind of the post-COVID hangover of all this, that the ratios with the banks aren't where they need to be to be a little more aggressive with that. So it will take some time, I think, to free up some of that capital, but hopefully aided by some public incentives that blend will be attainable.

The fourth is clarity on our changing markets. There's a lot happening with our demographics also, with more population coming this way and different age groups, we're definitely looking at a different style of housing, which it gets to this more dense, multifamily type housing. So there was a good focus I thought, on how do we bring that to the forefront? How are we going to understand and move forward without a study? It's not really possible. So feasibility, again, looking at our market analytics and trying to understand who wants what kind of housing, we do need to have that diverse housing option from single family all the way through to city dense living.

Andy: But the families that we would hope and think would be coming here in the next decade are it's going to change the overall demographic in a younger shift. And those will be more, I'll say, active families or folks who haven't necessarily grown up here who might now kind of be at the retirement stage where they're either spending less time here to begin with, or they are maybe just a little more homebound. So now you have this more active demographic that's going to be much more focused on desirability, school districts, the amenities and the town centers that they want to have access to.

Jo Anne: Mobility, walkability.

Andy: Yep. Parks and

Jo Anne: ...or amenities. And also the aging in place as well. This would - not only do we want to bring in the younger demographic that we know is coming our way, we also want to be able to have our older citizens stay in the places they want to stay in and age there in a more dense community where they have those services close by.

Andy: It's funny because that one's an opportunity and a challenge. You have a number of empty nester households, particularly in the suburbs here, where I think if there was housing stock that was desirable to the 65, 75-year-old crowd, they would consider downsizing and leave those homes, those larger homes with multiple bedrooms. It would be great for families that are moving here. It would leave that housing stock available for that new family in town. But right now, there's not a good place for that senior community to go. There just is not the housing options. So it's like I say, a challenge and an opportunity.

Katie: This all, like you said, Joanne, Andy, very complex. And some of the statistics that get floated around are also kind of daunting. I mean, recently we saw that locally rents have increased 57% over the last seven years. We need roughly 2,500 new units a year to keep up with the demand, which is about six times more than what was permitted in 2023. I mean, these aren't easy pills to swallow. So how do you guys in your day-to-day life, talk about housing with the people you know and the community members that you talk to, to make it still feel imperative as an issue, but also doable?

Andy: Well, I think the biggest concern about that with the cost of the average rental house especially, is kind of this underbelly of affordability for if the rent of a unit that was previously $800, now the marketplace can bear $1,200, what happens to that individual who could only pay $700 and was making it a stretch to pay 800? And there are major concerns about what not having the housing stock in the first place means to affordability for lower class and lower middle class. That's exactly why I think the state focus, the governor's budget, all of it has been so focused on affordability of housing and where those developments are going to take place. It's absolutely critical that we get that right. And it's not an easy answer.

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Katie: Governor Kathy Hochul unveiled the ON-RAMP initiative at the beginning of the year. It'll create innovative collaborative workforce development facilities, a flagship one here in Syracuse and others throughout the state. CenterState CEO has been helping to lead the planning efforts, and that includes partnering to ensure that community voices are included on the project. Leading the community engagement efforts is Tylah Worrell. She talked to us about what she's hearing from the community and what they want when it comes to workforce opportunities.

Tylah: I really think for me, the biggest takeaway that I've been getting from each session is that people really want that connection. I think that connection piece is really crucial into ensuring that this ON-RAMP initiative will be a successful one. When I think even for myself and probably any successful person it took, when they say it takes a village, it really took a village. You need your family. I was fortunate enough to have my parents, aunts, uncles, friends, be able to support me identifying mentors to help me when I was in school, identifying teachers and professors who were able to help push me along. And even now, still in my position, I still seek support and that is how I'm able to be successful. So I think for anyone, they need connection. You need to have a sense of belonging before you can reach even any form of self-actualization. And so I think if CenterState CEO and this ON-RAMP initiative is able to really nail that piece when it comes to this workforce training hub, I definitely think we're going to be able to potentially see a lot of local people in the workforce reach a higher level of self-actualization. And that's been really exciting to hear.

Katie: So we've talked a lot about what the community has said, but I'm wondering what your hopes for ON-RAMP are personally, what do you hope to see from this initiative and how it plays out in the community?

Tylah: Well, my hope is that this will really be the turning of the tides for Syracuse. We have been impoverished for a very long time, arguably speaking, since the salt trade market. So that's roughly a hundred years ago. And so I'm really hoping with the understanding that this is on a macro level of interest in America to be a leader globally, that we can put differences aside and really come together as a cohesive ecosystem and be inclusive so that on a micro level, people who are willing to work for what they need and can really get in where they fit in, can reach a level of financial stability and financial freedom. Because I really think that that would solve a lot of the issues that we're seeing, at least in Syracuse and the surrounding areas in the region. So I really hope that, well, I know that this initiative won't solve all the problems, but I'm hoping that it'll be a piece to the puzzle that will instill hope back into the community and will make people believe that they can actually reach higher, higher potentials. There's a lot of talent that's trapped in poverty, and I know specifically in Syracuse. And so I'm hoping that when people can reach these higher levels of financial stability and financial freedom, we'll be able to get that potential more actualizing. You'll see more successful people like myself in positions of authority and positions of impactful change and just happy.

Katie: And finally, 2024 is the year that Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Ithaca, and its consortium of partners became a federally funded tech hub as the NY SMART I-Corridor of the 12 tech hubs selected for federal funding. It's the only one focused on semiconductors. The consortium is led by Center State CEO, OneROC in Rochester, and the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, Ben Sio, Joe Stefko, and Dottie Gallagher from these organizations joined me here on the Talk CNY podcast and explained why this designation is important and what it means for our communities. So why should anyone who lives in the area that makes up the NY SMART I-Corridor care that we are a federally designated tech hub?

Joe: Well, Katie, I think there are a couple of answers to that. I mean, the first is this federal investment is going to allow us to really supercharge efforts around workforce and university level collaboration and governing the regional corridor here, as well as activating and deepening the semiconductor supply chain, layering those dollars alongside significant commitments from New York State. And again, as we talked about before, the break, building off the demand drivers that Micron and others in the broader ecosystem are creating this whole opportunity that's being created. That's one answer. I think maybe as powerfully as the dollars is the validation that comes with both the Tech Hub designation and the implementation award. The fact that we were, as Dottie mentioned before, the break, one of 400, nearly 400 competitors at the outset of this program narrowed down to 31 finalists, narrowed down to a dozen first-in-the-nation implementation awards.

It's validation that this region, our regions collectively can compete with any place in the country, any place in the world. The fact that the Feds selected our corridor and our bid to be their only semiconductor related regional tech hub investment through the recent phase two award, I think having that validation, the federal government's imper mater, their seal of approval opens a significant number of doors, economic opportunities for our region. I think that validation is at least as powerful as the dollars that we're going to have an opportunity now to invest to supercharge all of the economic development efforts.

Ben: So the only in addition, I'd say that to what Joe just said is the total federal award is around $40 million, which is fantastic. B ut we really viewed that as a down payment in this work, right? We know there'll be more investments made from the private sector. There's going to be more, hopefully more federal investments made along the tech hubs line because if you recall, the Tech Hubs program was created to the tune of multi-billion dollars, but only originally funded it to the tune of $500 million. So technically there is the authorization from Congress to make this a much bigger program. We're anticipating and hoping that the funds are eventually appropriated to do that, and we already have ideas through our initial planning work of where that could be invested. But ideally, the things that the projects that we're investing as part of this work lead to additional learnings and additional success.

We can either scale, accelerate, or pivot into a different area of growing the semiconductor industry locally if we need to. Right. So I think really importantly, this is yes, a great investment, and yes, a great stamp of approval on our work, but also I think most importantly was the federal government saying, Hey, we're committed to this region for this industry and we're committed to it in the longterm, and we're going to continue to make investments and do other things to support the growth of the industry locally. We know what some of that looks like right now. Obviously, t here's support and chips and science for Micron if for other partners that are building in the region. But what that looks like two or three years from now still TBD. And I think that's great to have that whole of government partner approach with us along this journey of growing the industry locally.

Dottie: I mean, the short answer to that question is why should someone care? Is this is going to be transformational to the economy of Upstate New York, more jobs, more investment, and more economic stability for our region, more taxpayers, more revenue, all of those good things that we were looking for after decades of being worried about our economies getting smaller. That's why you should care.

Ben: Dottie just said what I said in 30 seconds.

Dottie: Just translating you, Ben. That's all.

Katie: There are, of course, many more highlights from the season. We just couldn't fit them all into a single episode. But we encourage you to go back and listen through the episodes when you have the chance. You'll hear about all that we've achieved together and what we hope to accomplish in the future. And speaking of the future, there is still one more episode of the Talk CNY podcast this season. So make sure you are subscribed on whatever platform you get your podcast and look forward to an episode of Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank, every other Wednesday. CenterState CEO's podcast Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank, is available on clickcny.com and all major podcast platforms. After each episode, you can join us on Click, where we'll continue to talk about this topic and provide additional resources and links. In Click, you can listen to or watch every episode of Talk CNY. Click is CenterState CEO's digital chamber platform, where our members connect, learn, and receive support from our staff. For new episode reminders, be sure to subscribe in your favorite podcast listening app. If you're enjoying Talk CNY consider leaving a quick review or a five-star rating.