GOSHEN – The accelerator program, a business incubator approach of the former administration of the Orange County Industrial Development Agency, is being phased out.
The new board and leadership believe the program has been mismanaged. Tenants remained for long periods of time despite the concept to aid start-up companies, and the IDA bore far too much of the operating costs, they said.
As a result, IDA Executive Director Bill Fioravanti the agency is shifting away from the program.
“We have already notified New Windsor that we are not going to renew leases for three of five buildings that we rent on the Stewart Airport campus that we have used for the accelerator programs. They expire at the end of this calendar year. We have already notified them that we don’t want to be the landlord anymore and we have connected them with these tenants and these clients in the accelerator and try to support them and hopefully becoming tenants of the town in that case,” he said. “I think you will see that elsewhere, start to divest ourselves, especially of the real estate and related costs.”
New Windsor Supervisor George Meyers is not committing to a takeover of the program in his town. He said officials are doing their due diligence before making a decision.
