Global Company to Move into Repurposed Historic Aqueduct Building Along the Genesee River
$82 Million Investment Further Supports Efforts to Revitalize Rochester's Urban Center Through Investments in the ROC the Riverway Initiative and in the Downtown Innovation Zone
Project also Supported with "Finger Lakes Forward" Grant to Begin Construction on Aqueduct Reimagined Project
Governor Hochul: "We're making our mark. We're putting our signature projects right here. And this is going to be continued to be spectacular that future, my friends, is extraordinarily bright and I thank our friends at Constellation for having the faith, the belief in us, and that is going to trigger a statement to other companies who are looking anywhere. They can go to start a business. They're going to say. It's a cool building. It's a cool company. It's a cool place to be."
Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced that Constellation Brands, a leading beverage alcohol company, will relocate its headquarters, currently based in Victor, Ontario County to the historic Aqueduct Building located along the Genesee River in downtown Rochester. The Fortune 500® company will invest approximately $50 million to renovate five buildings on the Aqueduct campus located between East Main and Broad streets, across from Blue Cross Arena at the Community War Memorial. Purchased in March of 2020, the property developers plan to invest an additional $30 million at the 170,000 square-foot riverfront campus. The transformative project will also involve the construction of a 120-space parking structure, and qualified historic restoration of the Aqueduct buildings' windows and other architectural features. Constellation Brands expects to create more than 80 new local jobs as part of the project in addition to the more than 340 jobs that will move to the Aqueduct location, while roughly 200 employees will continue to be based out of the Canandaigua office. The company expects to be operational at the historic waterfront facility In the Spring of 2024.
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 is available below:
Great to be home, my friends, great to be back home. God, I love Western New York. So magnificent to be with all of you on this day. You cannot understate the significance. I believe that people are going to look back on this day with this announcement and say, yes, this was the day we realized that the comeback of Rochester is real.
It's happening in buildings like this and this community was built by audacious believers. People who started companies a century ago, who just had this faith that there was so much potential in this region. They started great companies that were the legacy businesses, and we all know their names. Some are not with us anymore and some are not what they used to be, but on their shoulders, we have today's audacious dreamers, and I'm talking about the economic development team we have here in Rochester in this community.
Also the people at Constellation Brands who see a possibility in an opportunity here to be a part of redefining the future of this spectacular community. So to Joe Stefko, I want to thank you for all that you do with ROC2025. I feel like ROC2025 is already ROC2021. It's like really, you're already rocking it today, but I know we have more great things to come, so thank you for everything you've done.
And the elected leaders that I've had such a close relationship, our County Executive, Adam Bello, we've been through a lot together and your leadership, especially during this pandemic, was so necessary, so critical to literally saving lives. Let's give our county executive a great round of applause.
Our mayor, Lovely Warren, and I have gone through so much and work so hard, especially fighting gun violence in this city. And I thank you for your efforts and bringing back communities that have been forgotten for so long. And we did a lot of projects together. So, to our mayor, Lovely Warren, thank you for your leadership in this
Council Member Malik Evans is here. We'll have a lot of challenges ahead, but we'll certainly be able to meet them. Well, as well as our council members who are here, we're looking forward to those relationships.
Members of the Assembly who have joined us. As you mentioned, Clark, Bronson and Meeks have joined us. I thank them, not just for what they do here, but how they have that fighting spirit on behalf of the Finger Lakes region when they're in our state Capitol as well.
And Bill Newlands, who I'll be introducing a couple of minutes.
Did the announcement already get out? I thought I was going to bring this big surprise here, but I do read the local papers and I see the local news, so I know it's already out. But something like this was just too incredible to keep quiet for very long.
I had a chance to talk to Rob Sands and others that have worked hard to make this happen just to thank them. And that's what I do in the State of New York. I never take for granted any business that's here. I know a lot of companies could go elsewhere. We're always competing with other states and other nations to take our very best, but a company like Constellation, that's been here for over 75 years and yes, they've expanded, they've grown so much and they've just created an international brand that we're so proud that they've called this area home. But to know that that is going to continue for generations in a building. Vinnie Esposito says it's the coolest building in downtown Rochester. So, uh, so once Vinnie declares something cool, it has to happen is what I've learned as well.
And thank you for all your work on this, Vinnie, on behalf of Empire State Development. It is a cool building. I love old buildings. I grew up around Lackawanna and Buffalo and you know, we've got the same era as the late 1800's and people are building, and this is even after they had the courage and the crazy idea to build this canal.
And to connect our great cities of upstate New York to this former village known as New York City. That became a powerhouse because of communities like Rochester and Buffalo and the other canal communities. And to see this, the power of the Genesee river, just you can hear the sound of it and know how this was a reason we could have textiles and manufacturing here because of the power of the water.
It's amazing that this company will come in this building, built in late 1800's, by a former secretary of state who decided that this region, this building needed to be built in this space. And now all these decades, centuries later, it's incredible to see what's going to happen here. We bring over 340 people to work downtown, and then they have friends and their family, and everybody wants to hang out downtown and you create this critical mass of a cool area as Vinny would say.
It's been long time awaiting, long overdue, and finally that day has arrived to have one of the largest beverage companies in the world, headquartered right here in downtown Rochester. Let's give that a round of applause.
We'll put a little money toward it too. We'll help you out here. We're going to support this move with $4 million of Excelsior tax credits. And also we are committing an additional $5 million for Roc the Riverway, a grant to the city of Rochester for the initial construction phase of the aqueduct re-imagined project.
And what we're doing is creating a down payment and creating a public space next door. That is going to be the centerpiece of Roc the Riverway. And I've seen this before. I've seen what happened at canal side in Buffalo. And I'm telling you when we get these two synergy, the synergy between these two cities when we finally achieved the full potential of these waterways and what was given to us a century ago.
And now we're making our mark. We're putting our signature projects right here. And this is going to be continued to be spectacular. This building is going to start construction, I believe in spring of 2022, finish in 2024, which is great. And also this re-imagined aqueduct. We're going to remove the Broad Street Bridge to its historic level, and this is going to be gorgeous.
I just looked out the window. I saw what we're going to do, and it's going to have a wow factor that is going to go beyond, beyond, beyond our boundaries. This is the day you witnessed this, you witnessed the advent of a whole new chapter in the Finger Lakes, Rochester, but only truly New York State's future.
And that future, my friends, is extraordinarily bright and I thank our friends at Constellation for having the faith, the belief in us, and that is going to trigger a statement to other companies who are looking anywhere. They can go to start a business. They're going to say. It's a cool building. It's a cool company. It's a cool place to be. So thank you very much.
I also want to give a lot of credit to Bob Duffy. He has worked so hard on projects like these, and I know you'll be hearing from him in a couple of minutes, Bob, thank you for your leadership of this community. As a chief of police and as a mayor and as Lieutenant governor, and now the important role you play in economic development.
And I want to thank you for all you do. So my friends in Rochester. This is the day, you're here to witness this and I'm really fired up and excited. Congratulations.