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ALBANY – A solar company plans to set up a manufacturing facility near Batavia and is expecting to create 700 to 1,000 jobs over five years.Gov. Andrew Cuomo will be in Batavia on Wednesday afternoon to announce the plans for 1366 Technologies at the Western New York Science Technology Advanced Manufacturing Park in Alabama, Genesee County.
The announcement has been years in the making, and it will come with state and local incentives – which will be detailed at the announcement.
“This has been a long journey for me personally and the Senate for getting the investment in the early stages for land acquisition and infrastructure investment,” Sen. Michael Ranzenhofer, R-Clarence, Erie County, who represents the area. “It’s good to see a project that we’ve been working on for such a long period of time come to fruition and be so good for the community.”
The Bedford, Mass., company said it is developing a photovoltaics manufacturing facility with high-tech wafers that has the “potential to revolutionize the wafer manufacturing by eliminating process steps, time, and waste with an elegant, scalable process. And there is more to come.”
On its website, the company said: “The science is understood. The material is abundant. The products work. All that is left is to build the largest manufacturing industry in the history of mankind. This is what we intend to do.”
There was no immediate comment from the company or Cuomo’s office on the announcement.
But the project has been quietly evolving – and it even has a code name: “Project Eagle.”
In the Finger Lakes Regional Council’s application for a $500 million state competition submitted Monday, it lists the STAMP project as having “more than $700 million of potential investment represented by Project Eagle, a nanoscale manufacturing facility.”
The application states that “active discussions” are underway for four additional companies that could produce private investments between $100 million and $3 billion.
“Based on the expected success rate among these projects, the council expects to attract at least $1.5 billion in private investment, creating 1,460 direct jobs in the next five years,” the application said.
Local officials are excited about the announcement.
In an email to members, Mark Peterson, president and CEO of the Greater Rochester Enterprise, said the announcement will “provide more details about the magnitude of this project and its economic impact on our nine-county region.”
Through a spokeswoman, Peterson declined comment Wednesday morning.
Assemblyman Steve Hawley, R-Batavia, said Wednesday’s announcement will hopefully add synergy in the Batavia area, which has had an increase in manufacturing for Greek yogurt and other products.
Yes, this is great. But why does it have to be in the middle of nowhere? Also, it really seems to benefit Buffalo more than Rochester. The best location would have been the property that Xerox just sold to a home builder, north of their Webster Campus. The new MCWA water plant is the next block over, on Basket Rd.
I keep asking. Where is Rochester's master plan? We've got the energy, enthusiasm and ingenuity. We just need a leader
The company was awarded 4 million dollars in federal grants. Just another solar company that has high hopes but won't be able to compete with the Chinese manufacturing plants.
They closed due to "adverse market conditions" aka China. They invested 1.2 billion in the plant and never produced a single product. The sad thing is they promised 900 high paying jobs and people flocked to their degree program they set up at a local college. These people paid for specific training with hopes of working at the plant. Now the hopeful employees have degrees in something that is worthless in this area.
The company was awarded 4 million dollars in federal grants. Just another solar company that has high hopes but won't be able to compete with the Chinese manufacturing plants.
They closed due to "adverse market conditions" aka China. They invested 1.2 billion in the plant and never produced a single product. The sad thing is they promised 900 high paying jobs and people flocked to their degree program they set up at a local college. These people paid for specific training with hopes of working at the plant. Now the hopeful employees have degrees in something that is worthless in this area.
This kind of things happen because too many of these urban renewal projects focus on helping a geographic location rather than trying to help the people there. Plants should not be built in a city out of pity just because that city is doing poorly. They should be built at locations best suited for such plants, and the people should just get aids in training and mobility. If there is no job in Rochester, and the regulatory/business environment here is not suitable for creation of jobs, instead of forcing jobs to come here, just help the people move to where there are jobs with training to get those jobs.
This kind of things happen because too many of these urban renewal projects focus on helping a geographic location rather than trying to help the people there. Plants should not be built in a city out of pity just because that city is doing poorly. They should be built at locations best suited for such plants, and the people should just get aids in training and mobility. If there is no job in Rochester, and the regulatory/business environment here is not suitable for creation of jobs, instead of forcing jobs to come here, just help the people move to where there are jobs with training to get those jobs.
Why? Obviously this project coming to the area due to the workforce and infrastructure that is there, along with some grants, which every company gets. We'll have to see if this works out or not.
I'm hoping it does work out for them. I was sad to see these people around here investing two years of their lives (unpaid) training for a job that never was. It was some very specific training (Hemlock constructed special "labs" for the students to train in). Yes, they did get an associates degree but it sucks they never got the job.
Why? Obviously this project coming to the area due to the workforce and infrastructure that is there, along with some grants, which every company gets. We'll have to see if this works out or not.
Where is the workforce (Genesee county pop 50,000) or infrastructure which is being installed now? (But no roads to get there). There is ONE reason it is being built there. The Buffalo area won't allow the low cost hydro power to escape their region. Dispite that federal dollars built the hydro plant and that it employes many with high paying jobs, they greadily won't share the hydro power. Rochester gives and gives and gives to Buffalo, but never gets anything in return.
This plant is being brought there by the Rochester- Finger Lakes economic council (Joel Seligman and Danny Wegman), but Buffalo is cheering it as their own.
Where is the workforce (Genesee county pop 50,000) or infrastructure which is being installed now? (But no roads to get there). There is ONE reason it is being built there. The Buffalo area won't allow the low cost hydro power to escape their region. Dispite that federal dollars built the hydro plant and that it employes many with high paying jobs, they greadily won't share the hydro power. Rochester gives and gives and gives to Buffalo, but never gets anything in return.
This plant is being brought there by the Rochester- Finger Lakes economic council (Joel Seligman and Danny Wegman), but Buffalo is cheering it as their own.
I wouldn't be surprised if the location was a matter of compromise. Many still view Genesee County as being connected to the Rochester area. So, the economic council may look at it as a win.
Many of the employees are likely to come from both the Buffalo and Rochester areas and if it isn't already in place, there will be infrastructure built at the immediate site. That will in turn be connected to the larger state infrastructure.
I will also say that this sounds similar to the announcement that occurred in Utica in regards to Nanotech firms bring jobs there. It was something that CenterState CEO pushed and took credit for, in spite of being based in Syracuse. Syracuse will or supposedly will get some residual jobs from it and the president says that distance doesn't matter as much in regards to Syracuse area folks trying to get some of those jobs. So, I'm wondering if these chamber of commerce groups are trying to regionalize and/or kill 2 birds with one stone with these job announcements. My problem with this is connected to the distance and lack of job investment within the urban centers(city or adjacent suburbs).
Bickering as to whether it belongs to Buffalo or Rochester seems petty... it's a big story no matter your location in WNY or anywhere upstate. I'm happy to see a 2nd large scale solar mfg. plant coming to WNY, I think this is an industry that will grow and grow. Coupled with Rochester's engineering and research, WNY can become a hot spot for solar.
Let's hope the Rochester region can win the URI competition and attract "project cataract", whatever it is. Apparently it's a rather large optics/imaging technology company of some sort and is looking at downtown Rochester for its manufacturing facility. With the photonics manufacturing facility slated to be at Eastman Business Park, it seems like a natural fit for this company to locate near there too I'm imagining.
Quote:
The region is competing for Project Cataract, a confidential
project by a large OPI company to establish a new manufacturing
facility. If the Finger Lakes region successfully attracts Project
Cataract with the help of the URI, the new facility will be
constructed in the urban core and will provide jobs for a range of
skill levels with minimal transportation barriers – targeting hard-toplace
and low-income workers. The region is a prime candidate
thanks to a history of innovation in this space, a talented
community with strong intellectual capital, and directly related
workforce development programs such as the Optical Technology
degree at Monroe Community College. Multiple sites globally are
under consideration for Project Cataract, so URI support is crucial
to attract this investment to New York State, and would result in up
to $400 million of private capital investment and 600 new direct
jobs in downtown Rochester.
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Just another solar company that has high hopes but won't be able to compete with the Chinese manufacturing plants.
