Schleifer: “We can deliver”
ALBANY – A total of 24 proposals for funding under the state’s
consolidated funding application process were presented Tuesday to a panel
of state officials who will decide if they receive state funding, and
if so, how much. The Mid-Hudson region is competing against nine other
regional councils across the state in the fifth year of the funding.
Mid-Hudson Council Co-Chairmen Dr. Dennis Murray, president of Marist
College, and Dr. Len Schleifer, president of Regeneron, outlined the proposals
noting the plan looks to grow jobs, revitalize cities, to raise the bar
on information technology and tourism.
Schleifer was confident the Mid-Hudson could make good on its plans.
We can deliver because we have a ripe set of assets that will allow us
to take our educated workforce, the leaders that we already have in information
technology and bio-tech and food and beverage, our tourist attractions,
and put it all together and spread that economic wealth to regions that
really need it,” he said. “There is tremendous need from Yonkers
to Poughkeepsie to Newburgh, up and down our region, and then we hope
that as our region gets a full recovery, it spreads up the state so that
everybody benefits.”
Among the highlights of the plan is to transform cities like Newburgh
and Poughkeepsie into “the Beacon Effect,” where that city
has grown into an arts, restaurant and antique hub.
Other plans include growth at Stewart Airport; the SoYo mixed use project
in Yonkers; Queen City Lofts in Poughkeepsie; expanding the Grayston Model,
investing in city, town, and village centers; funding for the Vassar Brothers
Medical Center patient pavilion; for Marist College; the Solar Energy
Consortium; travel and tourism, noting this region could become the Napa
Valley of the East; Legoland, if a new site is identified; Wildberry Lodge
in New Paltz and the Hudson River tour boat industry.
