Harrigan:
“… where they can go, how to have a good experience
…”
KINGSTON – Kingston will become the summer vacation home for tech
business incubator Grand Central Tech this July and August, bringing new
companies upstate for a temporary fresh-air getaway. The seasonal program
is expected to continue in following years, eventually expanding into
autumn.
CEO Matthew Harrigan explained the venture to local leaders at the Ulster County Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday.
Grand Central Tech made headlines in 2015 by providing swank office space
for startups, across the street from the Metro-North train station in
midtown Manhattan, free of charge.
Now they are bringing the concept upstate and changing the name.” We are recently reincarnated as ‘Company’,” Harrigan said. “Yes, we named the company, Company.”
Up to 75 downstate tech companies, representing collectively $500 million in capital, will be hosting strategic offsite corporate junkets at the Senate House Garage building on North Front Street in Uptown Kingston, starting July.
These employees will stay at local hotels, eat at local restaurants, and support the local economy, noted Harrigan. ”We hope to create a new norm whereby tech companies spend summer months up here and hopefully some of them choose to stay,” he said.
Ulster County Executive Michael Hein couldn’t be more pleased. His Office of Economic Development, with Director Suzanne Holt, has been working for years with area stakeholders, including Hudson Valley Tech Meetup, and Catskill Conf, to lure similar businesses to the region.
“I think that none of us can fully grasp how much demand there is in New York City, to get out of New York City, in the summer months. People just don’t know where to go, and we’re going to give them that place to go, right here in Ulster County,” Harrigan said.
The Westchester native described himself as a born and bred New Yorker, having spent his formative years vacationing in nearby Lake George. Harrigan described his vision for hi-tech countrified living.
“A phenomenon I observed every summer, everyone in New York City gets away to someplace nicer, and clutches that steering wheel on Sunday evening, hard white knuckles, saying why in the hell am I going back?” Harrigan said. “More and more of that is the truth for the tech sector. More and more, the tech sector does not need to be in New York City, and does not want to be in New York City – for any number of reasons: lifestyle, cost of labor, creating new opportunities to differentiate themselves to competition. We started talking amongst ourselves in New York. We’ve been speaking with this community, and they’ve all been saying, we want to deliver a differentiated experience to our employees, and we want to engage with the broader New York State economy.”
“How do we do that?” Harrigan asked. “That’s the
last ingredient that was unfound. New York is a big state; it looks like
a big wide open map. They need somebody to tell them where they can go,
how to have a good experience, and spend time on the weekend, and interact
with other great tech companies, and not just be in the middle of the
boonies – no offense.”
More info on company.co
