Category Archives: Economic Development

By Paul Post

Saratoga Economic Development Corporation leveraged its million-dollar budget to help bring $177 million worth of new investment to Saratoga County, create 651 new full-time jobs and retain 214 more, last year alone.

The roughly 250-member, non-profit entity strives to attract and support large and small business alike in all sectors of the local economy.

Vibrant downtowns and a high quality of life with diverse recreational and cultural offerings continue to attract employers. But SEDC President Greg Connors says assets such as Saratoga County’s rich history, the Hudson and Mohawk rivers on its borders, and proximity to the Adirondack Park have considerable potential, too, for boosting the local economy.

“We really run the gamut of being able to support economic sectors that are familiar to Saratoga County and some of the ones that may not be as familiar such as life sciences, industries that support thoroughbred breeding, farming and agriculture,” he said. “Renewable energy has emerged, too, and of course the 21st century advanced manufacturing supply chain.”

“Many of the projects we continue to work on, we work under a non-disclosure agreement,” Connors said. “Investors don’t want their presence to be known during early stages of the investigatory process for obvious reasons. But we’re anticipating significant interest. Our job is to take that interest to investment.”

By Paul Post

Jim Siplon came to Glens Falls to help launch a new company, Just Water, which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary.

In the process, he fell in love with the area and is now a driving force for its short- and long-term economic health and vitality.

“A lot of people look at the Adirondack Park as an economic liability,” said Siplon, Warren County Economic Development Corporation president. “I take a contrarian view. We have one foot inside the park and one foot outside. That is a really unique strategic place to be. Look south to Saratoga and the Capital District and we have connections to much bigger things like the chip fab industry. Take the same drive north and you can be on Lake George, skiing at Gore Mountain or atop of one of the 46 High Peaks.”

“That’s a tremendous opportunity,” he said. “We have to figure out how to leverage our location. That’s going to require investment in infrastructure such as broadband, thinking about where we want additional housing, investing in assets that attract new residents and young people because we have an aging population, and taking care of existing businesses. That combination of things is what we’re constantly working on.”

By R.J. DeLuke The Saratoga Economic Development Corp. (SEDC) has been a driving force in the economic development in the area for more than four decades. Functioning as an independent, nonprofit group, its purpose is to create jobs and diversify the tax base. It is always examining what business or industry might be a...

BY PETE BARDUNIAS

For decades, Saratoga County has been blessed with multiple large organizations supporting economic development, including chambers of commerce, EDCs, local development agencies, IDAs, and more. 

One of these, the Chamber of Southern Saratoga County (CSSC), was founded in 1967 to promote Clifton Park and Halfmoon, eventually providing support for the towns, villages and suburbs just north of the Mohawk River. By its 50th anniversary, the organization had grown to be in the top 10-12 percent of chambers statewide, despite still being the “small” chamber in Saratoga County.

Like many nonprofits in the past decade, the CSSC board evaluated potential partners for collaboration, affiliation or outright merger, culminating with affiliation into the 2600 member Capital Region Chamber in 2020, just weeks before the onset of the COVID pandemic.

As one of three large chambers making up the Capital Region Chamber (along with the eight-county Center for Economic Growth), the CSSC continues to be the official chamber of commerce of Clifton Park and Halfmoon, the administrator of the Saratoga County Community Development Program (funded in part by the Saratoga County Board of Supervisors) and the operator of the visitor center inside of the Clifton Park rest area at Northway Exit 8 that sees over 200,000 visitors annually. 

It remains committed to supporting events such as the festivals in Waterford, the Great Upstate Boat Show, the Saratoga County Fair, Clifton Park July 4, movies, concerts and car show in the village of Ballston Spa, the Burnt Hills Flag Day parade, the Malta Business Community Alliance, and much more.

The Wilton Mall ownership and Paramount Development have proposed adding new multifamily housing to the shopping center property as part of its transformation from strictly a retail facility to a more community centric mixed-use destination. 

The project includes 382 new luxury, market-rate rental residences, including both apartments and townhomes. The enhancement to the community will feature premium resident amenities and sophisticated design. 

Officials said the $120 million investment in Wilton will drive significant new sales and property tax revenue for Saratoga County and the Town of Wilton.

The housing community’s new residents will translate to new customers spending money at the Wilton Mall as well as surrounding retail, restaurants and entertainment facilities.

According to the developers, recent years have seen unprecedented changes in the retail industry, requiring shopping malls to evolve in response or risk going out of business. In July 2007, Wilton Mall backfilled the former retail space with a grocery store and fitness center. It marked the first steps towards the mall’s mixed use evolution. 

In 2018, Wilton Mall experienced two anchor store closings—Sears and Bon Ton. Within two years the Saratoga Hospital opened in the former Sears store. Now Wilton Mall has an opportunity to further expand upon its uses and plans to repurpose the former Bon Ton site with amenity-rich apartments and townhouses.

By Dennis Brobston

One of our beloved presidents, Abraham Lincoln, once said “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” That is our belief at Saratoga Economic Development Corp. (SEDC). 

Creating Saratoga County’s economic development future has been our mission for over 43 years of existence. Working with SEDC to create our economic future are many partners: Saratoga County and local governments, Saratoga County businesses large and small, our Industrial Development Agencies (IDAs), universities and colleges and our K-12 school districts, to name a few. Over the last decade, SEDC and our stakeholders helped to create over 1,700 new jobs with over $170 million in payroll while retaining over 2,050 existing jobs at Saratoga County companies.

The year 2021 was another strange year as we all continued to adapt thru the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Like 2020, we were thrust into uncharted waters for supporting our existing businesses in Saratoga County while marketing our region for new and exciting companies looking for fertile ground to grow their businesses. And like 2020, this past year of 2021 proved to be another banner year delivering over $110 million in new investment while creating 182 new jobs and over $11.5 million in payroll. 

Over the last two years, we have supported $232 million of investment creating over 629 jobs with over $38 million in new payroll while retaining 730 existing jobs. The years 2020 and 2021 are the first back-to-back years with more than $100 million investment in our 43-year history. We are thankful for all of the projects that allowed us to excel during this pandemic.

Promoting Saratoga County’s sites and buildings to site selectors across the country and throughout Europe will continue in 2022. Our efforts to create more product (pre-zoned sites and buildings) continue as we work with our municipalities eyeing this type of growth. “On spec” flex space is being built regularly in Saratoga County and the support of the Saratoga County IDA and the Town of Clifton Park IDA is vital to that continuing. 

The rising costs of steel and building materials make it difficult to develop without the incentives our IDAs use to support new growth. Prospects require pre-approved sites and buildings in order to meet increasingly tight deadlines to produce and distribute products. We appreciate working with our planning boards and staff, property owners, developers and real estate associates as prospects look to us for guidance on efficient turnarounds for projects.

By Jim Siplon

It is certainly not news to say that the last two years of COVID have reshaped our area economy and the work we do to support it. 

One of the often acknowledged aspects of the COVID era is the observation that the pandemic often exposed and accelerated shifts that were already underway but perhaps not yet fully understood. Our economy and its dynamic elements , things like an aging workforce and a lack of new housing, are perhaps the greatest example of this. Constructing the framework that will underpin the post-COVID economy requires us all to lean into this together-to understand and retool around the “Economy of Now.”

EDC Warren County has long been focused on the strategic work required to attracting, growing and retaining business for our community. Classically, this was a process built around enticing new business to locate here and utilize our workforce to run them. Our programs, incentives and resources were deployed primarily in ways designed to capture transitory or relocating business ventures. 

While that work continues, it is transitioning before our eyes to a model that flips the traditional approach on its head. We are now in a competition for workforce, and those areas that have it will attract and grow the most successful business and economic entities while those that do not will struggle to build a sustainable economy. 

This need for workforce is not new, in fact it has been building slowly in the demographics for years. Baby boomers are aging out, birth rates have declined and flight of our young has been going on for some time. But today this problem is not limited to the North Country or other less populated areas but is now almost universal. 

By Christine Graf

For the past 12 months, the Saratoga County Prosperity Partnership (SCPP) has helped more than 1,000 local businesses navigate challenges related to COVID-19. President and CEO Shelby Schneider said the organization hit the ground running during the early days of the pandemic. 

The agency is not membership based and offers assistance to Saratoga County businesses of all sizes.

“We did a survey right away to help understand how the business community was being impacted by the shutdown and what sort of resources they considered to be critical. We also helped quantify how many jobs were being impacted,” she said. “This was the kind of information we were able to push up to our federal and state representatives so that they knew what the issues were. We were able to give them hard data on what the economic impact of the shutdown looked like for our business community.”

The Prosperity Partnership played a vital role in educating local business owners on the resources that were available to them, she said. They held multiple webinars related to Phase 1 of the economic stimulus package which included Payroll Protection Plan (PPP) loans.

“It’s critically important to work with our community, county, state, and federal government to understand federal stimulus packages and make sure we are communicating those to the business community,” said Schneider. “Businesses do what they do well, and navigating a gauntlet of regulatory environment or funding sources is not necessarily something they are aware of.”

By Christine Graf

For the past 42 years, Saratoga Economic Development Corporation (SEDC) has been a driving force for economic growth in Saratoga County. They have helped to generate more than 17,500 new jobs, $12 billion in investment, and $34 million in annual tax revenue for the county.

Despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 was a successful year. The agency worked on 11 projects that resulted in investments of $121.3 million—more than the previous 4 years combined—and the creation and retention of over 1,100 jobs in the county.

SEDC focuses heavily on attracting manufacturing, warehouse and distribution and corporate headquarters to the area.

“We are looking for manufacturing of all kinds,” said SEDC President Dennis Brobston. “But we are precise in targeting companies that offer good paying jobs that are above the national average for the type of jobs we are looking at. We also want companies that have been in existence a long time or have good funding behind them and companies that want to be here long term–companies, like Ball Corp. and Quad Graphics, that are well funded and do a good job of taking care of their people.”

According to Brobston, Saratoga County is an ideal location for warehouse and distribution centers because it is within a day’s drive to just under 40 percent of the entire population of North America.