MONTICELLO – The Town of Liberty has secured $20 million through the Empire State Development FAST NY program.
The program was created to prepare and develop sites statewide to jump start New York’s shovel-readiness and increase its attractiveness to large employers.
ESD provides grants for pre-development activities and infrastructure investments to develop sites that will attract many eligible industries —including, but need not be limited to, high-tech manufacturing, clean-tech renewable energy, life sciences, agribusiness, optics, transportation equipment, materials processing, industrial machinery manufacturing and other advanced manufacturing.
The Sullivan County Partnership for Economic Development has made the development of shovel ready sites a top priority and has facilitated the approval of 2.4 million square feet of preapproved sites with another 1.7 million SF in the approvals process.
“We have been working with developers and municipalities throughout the Old Route 17 corridor and other locations in Sullivan County for years to help make Sullivan County sites more attractive to outside investment” said Partnership President Marc Baez.
A coalition of municipalities along the corridor including the county invested in an opportunities and constraints analysis which laid the groundwork for this effort and incentivized a developer to invest in securing preapprovals for one million square feet.
“There has been substantial interest in the Liberty site, but the lack of infrastructure was a challenge, and the FAST NY program was needed to make the site fully shovel ready.” said Baez. “The vision to develop the Old Route 17 Corridor began many years ago. We never quit; we stayed the course knowing we need to attract investment and jobs to our town. We worked closely with Horizons of Liberty a developer on the corridor to encourage investment there.”
Liberty Supervisor Frank DeMayo said the state grant “will be a catalyst for future development along Old Route 17 and be transformative for the Town of Liberty, Sullivan County and New York State. “The award of $20 million to provide shovel ready sites in the Town of Liberty will help to provide increased taxable assessed values, diversify our economy, and provide middle class job opportunities.”