Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces an Additional $146 Million Awarded Through The Restore New York Communities Initiative

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced more than $112.9 million has been awarded to 70 projects through the Restore New York Communities Initiative. Restore New York supports municipal revitalization efforts across the state, helping to remove blight, reinvigorate downtowns and generate economic opportunity in communities statewide. The program, administered by Empire State Development, is designed to help local governments revitalize their communities and encourage commercial investment, improve the local housing stock, put properties back on the tax rolls and increase the local tax base. The Governor also announced more than $33 million has been awarded to four municipalities in this round for special projects.

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the event is available here.

PHOTOS of the event are available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks are available below:

It is great to be back here and, not allowed to play favorites, but you know I've spent a lot of time here, not just during ice storms. I do come to Ulster quite often. I want to acknowledge an extraordinary leader, and that is our County Executive, Jen Metzger. We'll hearing from her in a couple moments. Breaking barriers. Not a lot of women county executives out there, so I can relate a little bit here. And just doing a fabulous job, county executive. I'm so proud to call you a partner in government, but also a friend. So, congratulations.

We also have the chair of the Ulster County Legislature here as well, Tracey Bartels. Thank you. We have our mayor. We've walked the street so many times at Kingston. Steve Noble, you are doing an incredible job and to see the vitality coming back. We were there during the pandemic and saw the businesses that were so hard hit and you cared so deeply. And I want to thank you for demonstrating the kind of leadership that Kingston needs in our whole region needs.

So, let's give a round of applause to our great mayor. We have our Town of Ulster Supervisor, Jim Quigley, is here, our supervisor. You know, I spent 14 years on a town board, so it's all about the supervisor and the council members. We've got to give them all the respect and also all the members of the county legislature. Who else is here from the Ulster County legislature? Raise your hand. Thank you. Thank you very much. You'll be hearing from Joe Cotter, the Co-Founder of Natural Resources. What a visionary Joe is. For decades, people have gone past this property and just kind of winced and thought about the good old days. And, Joe, you had a vision and believed in it, and you are here today, and I just want to commend you for the transformational approach that you are taking to not just its site, but many others. Let's give a huge round applause to Joe.

But opportunities like this don't work if we don't have an educated, trained workforce, and that's for our partners at our local educational institutions, which are extraordinary. We have the president of SUNY Ulster here, Dr. Alison Buckley. Let's give a round of applause to Dr. Buckley. Dr. Darrell Wheeler, the President of SUNY New Paltz, Darrell Wheeler's here, and Jonah Schenker, the Superintendent, fairly new on the job, the Superintendent of BOCES, so if you don't know him, get used to him.

Here we have an opportunity to empower local communities, to transform areas that have been blighted, neglected, revitalize abandoned buildings, and really breathe new life in the neighborhoods. And this is an area that I was very passionate about as a local town board member. I worked on our IDA and our planning board and our transportation board. So, I was involved in all the integral parts to transforming abandoned sites, but also building new facilities. And so, I know the power of how important this is, and it's really hard for local communities to do this on their own. They see a site, they have a vision, but the price tag is always so prohibitive.

And so, that's where bringing my local government knowledge to this position as Governor, we can blend the two together and help our local communities realize the visions that they have. I can't think of a better example than right here at this IBM campus. There's a lot of history here.

Anybody have a relative who worked here at one time? Okay. There's a few of you. IBM decided this was the place to be in the 1950s, a little while ago. They couldn't build it fast enough. There were thousands of people wanting jobs here. They didn't even have the letters IBM up on the building. They were already having to start work because people were so anxious to work here. They perfected the first executive typewriter. Who didn't have an IBM typewriter? They made critical components to protect our national security through the military. They designed the nation's air traffic control system. How important was that? And they pioneered software that really was the foundation on which we're making so many innovations today.

So, they did it all here, right on this site with the caliber of the workforce that called this area home. And at one time, it is extraordinary to think about this - 7,000 people worked here on this site and they were the driving force for the local economy. And just like what happened back, my hometown of Buffalo, things are going well and all of a sudden, they're not.

We lost 20,000 jobs at the Bethlehem Steel plant that had been the engine where my father and grandfather and uncles had all worked for many, many decades. And the same thing happened in communities all over Upstate - whether it was foreign competition, you know, companies moving south. There were a lot of reasons. Doesn't matter. It happened. And all of a sudden, the doors were shuttered, and it was the end of an era. When IBM closed their doors in 1995, a lot of people just thought, what's the future? What's going to happen? What happens to us? And it was really hard. It affects your identity. It didn't happen just here. Like I said, it was Buffalo. It was General Electric in Rochester and Eastman Kodak in the Capital Region. There's so many areas where you just can point to large major facilities manufacturers that hired a lot of people, and they're gone. There's no plan B. What do you do? What do you do? And people in this community have watched this facility deteriorate more and more over time.

And closing in 1995, you know, a baby born at that time was already done with college, probably working on their career. That's a long time. Well, one thing New Yorkers are going to get to know about me is I'm impatient. I don't like to wait. When I find an area that needs, you know, to be supercharged and bring energy to it and support it, I know we have to do something because people lose faith. They start to give up. They think about what could have happened, and they just kind of move on and say, "Well, not - perhaps — in my lifetime." We've changed that here in New York because this region has so much potential.

And so much is already going on here. I'm so in awe of what's happening in Ulster County under the leadership, but also the businesses who believed, who never gave up during some of the toughest times of the pandemic. But now with this site coming alive again, people are thinking about being bold and kind of audacious, and that's how you overcome cynicism. You get people to believe again that there can be something positive that comes out of it. And so, knowing that and knowing the power of money from Albany, which when I was a local official, we were always begging for money from Albany, so I know what it's like to be on that end.

Today, I'm here to announce $146 million for over 70 economic development projects across the state through our Restore New York Communities Initiative. And this is how you start jumpstarting a new era of pride and success. This is our second round. We announced our first just a few months ago. And of this, we have $33 million going to special award winners, and they run up and down projects from The Town of Lyons is getting more than 6.5 million for its Canal District. I've actually been on a boat in their Canal District. They need the $6.5 million. It's going to look a lot better. The City of Auburn, where I've been countless times, $8.5 million to renovate the former Bombardier community. If you've not been there, you need to go the Equal Rights Hall of Fame or the Equal Rights Welcome Center. It's extraordinary. We've opened that a few years ago. Jefferson County is getting more than $8.5 million at to demolish and reimagine a former paper mill. I mean, again, another reminder of the days gone by.

But it can't stand there. We have to have these communities even just physically take them down. And saving the best for last here with, among our major projects, how about $10 million for Ulster County to finish iPark87? Turning this into a workforce innovation center. Right here. Right here. Thank you. It is all about the workforce training - training tomorrow's workers, and not just for people who've been in this community and the kids who are born here now can stay here, but attracting people from other parts of our state and other parts of our country. Great opportunities. This is going to rehab two of our nearly seven decaying buildings and turning them into a state-of-the-art innovation hub, housing, cutting edge companies and some of our fastest growing industries in the world — renewable energy, clean tech, even film and television production. Why not? And cannabis cultivation and communications technology. And when it's all said and done, we think this is going to generate over 1,000 jobs. And I think that is extraordinary too.

So, I mentioned the importance of workforce. You know, we can build, and they will come, but let's have them come when they have skills. Let's have them here ready to step into these jobs so they can be productive. That's so much better for the employers. And so, we have partners in education, youth organizations like SUNY New Paltz, Ulster Community College and Ulster BOCES, all of them. We harness the power of those institutions who know what they're doing and bringing young people to those institutions and giving the specialized training so they can step into the jobs right here. That's the magic formula for success, and that's why, working with the Department of Labor and the County Office of Employment and Training, we'll be able to link business and workforce development in a really positive way. And they don't just magically happen. We're sending a message to all the potential iPark tenants. Joe, we're sending the word out. You bring your business here, we'll give you one of the greatest workforces in the world right here- highly educated, motivated. It's part of that DNA of working hard, like those 7,000 people did it one time here at IBM.

It's part of who we are in this region. And I think it's going to be fantastic. And you know, it reminds me, we're just back here in December, we did a Zinc8 Energy. That was great, how exciting was that? The Zinc8 Energy Solutions, and they're going to move their headquarters, making them the anchor tenant, which is fantastic. And we're looking for other opportunities. I mean, that's 500 jobs right there, 500 jobs. So, I think this is an opportunity for us to turn the page. Love the IBM story, but now we're going to talk about this site in a very different way. You know, that'll be part of the ancient history. We're building the future right here, today, with this announcement. So, I want to make sure everyone knows that it's the same energy we felt back then, back when they couldn't wait to get the IBM letters up on the building - because people want to work here, that is happening again right here in 2023. And I want to thank everybody, the true believers who never gave up, and also a predecessor.

Now our Congressman Pat Ryan was a firm believer in this project. He's taking care of business in Washington for us, but what a great leader he is as well. And so, it's just - so many people made it happen, and the impact we're having here today is going to lead to jobs and opportunities perhaps for the next 70, 100 years, right at this site. So, congratulations.