Keeping Momentum in 2024

In the first episode of Talk CNY Season 2, presented by NBT Bank, CenterState CEO President Rob Simpson joins new host Katie Zilcosky to reflect on all Central New York accomplished in 2023, and share his outlook for 2024. Tune in to get a preview of CenterState CEO’s 2024 Economic Forecast Report.

Simpson serves as president of the CenterState Corporation for Economic Opportunity (CenterState CEO), based in Syracuse, New York.  CenterState CEO is Central New York’s premier business leadership and economic development organization, committed to creating a region where business thrives, and all people prosper.

Learn more about CenterState CEO

Get tickets for the 2024 Economic Forecast Breakfast

CONNECT

CenterState CEO Website | Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | YouTube

Rob Simpson LinkedIn

Host: Katie Zilcosky LinkedIn 

Transcript

0:00

This is Talk CNY, presented by NBT BanK. A semimonthly podcast by CenterState CEO, Central New York's premier leadership and economic development organization. Join us as we meet the people and explore the projects driving the regional economy forward. Thanks for joining us for Talk CNY. I’m Katie Zilkosky, director of communications at CenterState CEO and your new host. This year, we are starting our first episode by taking a look forward at the year 2024 ahead, but also taking a little look back at 2023. Joining me for this conversation is CenterState CEO’s President Rob Simpson. Rob, thanks for being here. Thanks so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to kicking off another season. Yeah, so am I. I'm excited to be here as your host this year. So, like I said, we are starting off with 2023 taking a little look back before we look into the future. 2023 was a big year for Central New York. So, a lot happened? Can you give me a few of the highlights of 2023 in your eyes? I think 2023 in a lot of ways. I think we think now about 2022 October, the Micron announcement as a high watermark for Central New York. In a lot of ways, I think 2023 surpassed those expectations. What I loved about 2023 was that we used the opportunity to just reinforce the momentum that we're building here in Central New York. It's not just Micron. Obviously, that's the biggest thing that we have going in. One of the most important things to happen to our economy in in decades, if not ever. But 2023 brought a whole host of new wins. We opened City Center in downtown Syracuse, one of the last large remaining vacant buildings in downtown that hadn't been redeveloped is now this beautiful new office space for Hayner Hoyt Corporation and CXtec in a number of other businesses. And that was incredibly exciting. We were able to announce a major investment from TTM Technologies, a California-based company that makes them makes communications hardware and components there in the radar and sensing space microelectronics. They announced $110 million investment, creating a couple of hundred new jobs here in Central New York. That's remarkably exciting. Again, stacking wins and building momentum. And of course, we had at the end of the year, we had this remarkable accomplishment, Central New York, along with our partners in Rochester, Buffalo and Ithaca, designated as a federal tech hub, one of only 30 federal tech hubs designated across the nation. That designation comes with an opportunity now to compete for up to $50 million in federal funding to support initiatives across our thruway corridor. And it opens the door to massive amounts of downstream federal funding that we would have never otherwise been able to compete for. I think to me, 2023 was the exclamation point, basically letting the world know that 2022 wasn't a fluke, Micron wasn't a fluke. They came here because this was a region on the rise. And in 2023, I think we demonstrated that our ceiling is a lot, you know, really far above our head. Yeah. I mean, and on that note, looking into the future a little bit here in 2024, it sounds like we have a good steady foundation, a lot of momentum, like you said, going into this new year. And to get a little bit of perspective from a lot of our members each year we conduct the Economic Forecast report. And right now. So we went out, we talked to members of the business community, took a survey from them. We take all that data from them, compile it into a report that then gets released at the Economic Forecast Breakfast on January 31. So, that report is still being put together. It's very detailed. Lots that goes into it. But we do have some preliminary data points that we can share with our listeners today. The first one I want to look at is some of that. You said “fluke” earlier that maybe some people could think that in the very beginning. So there was some skepticism. Our last year's report showed that. Shocking. Yes, exactly right. That there was some skepticism around some of these really big major projects. Will they come to fruition? But this year's report, 68% of our respondents said that they were either somewhat more confident or much more confident that these major economic development projects will come to fruition. So what do you think made the difference in going from skepticism to confidence for a lot of our community? Well, listen, I've been doing this long enough to know that, you know, skepticism is just an inherent characteristic here in Central New York. I do think that the community is making progress at not always thinking that the sky is falling when good news is being announced. I've seen the way people are reacting to some of these announcements. It's just very different right now, which is very rewarding. That said, I think there's a couple of things as it relates to Micron specifically. The community had a chance over the course of 2023 to get to know this company. They got to watch the company spend massive amounts of time here essentially, or to start to hire people here in central New York to engage with different community based organizations and to and to make significant investments, millions of dollars into a clean room. At OCC, $10 million into STEAM education, science, technology, engineering, arts and math, including the STEAM school in downtown Syracuse. Big, major commitments that the company is making in workforce and education and community engagement that I think taken together over time, reinforced perhaps a narrative that, okay, this company, they're real, they're here, they're in this with us. Whereas, you know, in October of 2022, people, might have said, ‘Okay, it's a nice, flashy announcement, but, you know, what are they really going to do?’ Now, we've had a chance to see it, I think moreover in 2023, the community had a chance to see that we weren't putting all our eggs in the Micron basket. Obviously, as we said before, it is the biggest thing and the most important thing that we are working on. That said, you know, we continue to put these wins together. Small businesses are expanding and companies hiring... the tech hubs designation that I hope project confidence to our community, that our elected officials, our public sector partners, our private sector partners are working in concert with one another to execute on our strategy. It's not about projects, right? Each of these projects is a remarkable accomplishment. It's something to celebrate. But these projects are the outcome of investment in strategy over a long period of time to rebuild our center city, to focus on microelectronics, to put Central New York back into a place of economically global relevance. I hope that sustained activity sustained strategic investments are what is fueling some of that confidence. But I think we also can't ignore the fact that it is increasingly likely that our economy is going to thread this almost impossible needle right. At the beginning of last year in our forecast, I remember the the speaker that we had at our forecast breakfast talking about, you know, this really difficult needle that the Fed had to thread in order to bring about a soft landing. Where they raise interest rates, but don't push us into a recession. And increasingly it looks like that's what's going to happen. Interest rates have have stayed high, inflation has come down, Jobs and economic performance have stayed strong. And and I think that those macroeconomic conditions are also part of what's contributing to people's confidence. Now, you mentioned just now that a lot of this is people working together; it’s not individual projects. Is there a moment of collaboration over the past year that you can think of that made you think this is why people are more confident? This is why this is working? Where there were members coming together to make something bigger than just an individual project or building or opening a new storefront. Yeah, I think in a lot of respects to me, the collaboration that we had with Ithaca, Buffalo, Rochester around the tech hubs designation was maybe one of those eye opening moments. I've spent a lot of my career here in CNY talking about how we as a community, our CNY community, our Syracuse community needs to work more closely together. And I'm really proud of the fact that we are. Just the other day, the county executive was inaugurated for his next term and he talked about how, you know, a lot of our success is the result of collaboration, right? We've come a long way within our Central York market. But what I love and what gives me so much optimism for the future is that we now see that collaborative mindset shifting not just within our region, but across the Upstate New York footprint. And if we can successfully collaborate with Rochester and Buffalo, if we can collaborate better with Utica, Rome, if we can partner with Albany and other parts of our state, we are going to be in a much stronger position as an entire Upstate New York corridor for the future. The fact that we came together, for the first time in my career, and strategically set out to partner with Buffalo and Rochester on a major federal opportunity, we put a great application together. And not only that, but we won that designation. To me, that just reinforces the power of collaboration, right? When you do something hard, you're not sure if it's going to work, and then you get rewarded by getting this this important federal designation. I think it makes us all more likely to want to come back to the table and collaborate on something else down the road. And already we are working on a number of exciting collaborations with our partners across the Thruway corridor for 2024 that I'm really excited about it. Is that within tech hubs or is that outside of tech hubs? It opens that door, right? It's within tech hubs. It's adjacent to tech hubs. I think there's a lot of discussion right now amongst our Thruway corridor partners around workforce development and how we can up our game in terms of ensuring that our communities are meeting the moment. Employers right now have thousands of job openings and we need to help them access the labor pools necessary to fill those jobs. But we also need to ensure that that we're creating opportunity and access for historically marginalized populations who've been historically excluded from some of those jobs. And the partnerships and the creativity and the innovation that I'm seeing applied to workforce development or to the accelerator and innovation programs that we see happening in places like the Tech Garden and in Buffalo, Rochester, Albany. I think really the world is our oyster in terms of what more we can do, not just within our Central New York footprint but across the upstate corridor. So going back to one of the other data points that we have from the Economic Forecast Report...it may be a surprise to no one. Housing was a major concern for many members of our business community, and particularly those in the human and social services sector are concerned about vulnerable populations securing housing. We have housing initiatives here at CenterState CEO that we're working through. How do you see those progressing into 2024? Listen, I think we said this immediately after Micron make their announcement at the end of 2022 that that in a lot of respects, housing is is as important as jobs to our economic future. And I think we've seen that play out over the course of last year. We have not built enough housing in the last 12 months. We frankly haven't built enough housing in the last 20 years. This is not just a Syracuse and Central New York problem. This is a this is a New York state problem. Frankly, it's a U.S. problem also. But, in particular, certainly we're feeling the pain points. People who are living in our community right now are feeling the pain points. We need a lot more housing. We need to be building somewhere on the order of 2500 units of housing every year. We're building about 350 right now. Now, 2023 was a tough year and maybe not illustrative of what our potential is because we've seen interest rates move higher than they have at any point in the last 20 years, making it that much more difficult for someone to buy a home. But also, if you think about it, that much more difficult for a developer to take out a loan and finance a a multifamily development. So we we think that the number of units that could have been built in 2023 was a lot higher than the 300 or so that ultimately got built. And we're confident that as interest rates start to come down, we will start to see more housing built. Right now, we have somewhere on the order of 6,500 to 7,000 units of housing that developers are talking to our team about wanting to build in the Central New York footprint. That's a huge number. If we can convert even a fraction of that, we're going to make a big dent in the problem that we have. But this is not a one time problem. This is a trend that we're going to have to keep pace with every year going forward in this community, lest we run into some of the challenges that folks have had in faster growing communities, places like Boise and Chattanooga and Greensboro and in other communities like Nashville that have that have grown faster than their housing markets have. So, what are we doing about it? First, a couple of things. One, we do have a Housing Task Force here at CenterState CEO. We've got 20 or 25 members from across segments of our business community and our employer network and are not-for-profit organizations who are working together on trying to develop some policy opportunities to move the needle on housing. Most importantly, what we want to be able to do as a private sector based organization is to support the good work that the city is doing. They have undertaken a housing study. They're in the Phase two right now. The county is working with the same consultant on a county-wide housing study. New York State is also working on a housing study for the Central New York region as a whole. And all of these are designed to nest together to give us a complete picture of what's happening, what our current housing demand is, where there is going to be need for housing, and what kinds of housing options, everything from affordable to market rate, single family home, multifamily home. We're going to need to build. The fundamental challenge that I see with housing is that in New York State, we operate under a home rule system, which means every municipality controls, to some extent their land use and their zoning. Right now, in Onondaga County, I believe the number is 3% of land in Onondaga County is zoned for multifamily housing development. That is not a lot when you think about it. The reality is we need exponentially more housing in order to do that in a way that doesn't create sprawl, we need to embrace multifamily housing and higher density housing development than we've historically been used to, right? There's this idea that you can go build a single family home on a lot, and that's the American dream. For some it is. For many it's not. Demographics are changing, people's tastes are changing. But we simply cannot build enough housing, whether it's in Onondaga County or Oswego or Cayuga or anywhere else, without embracing a higher density footprint of housing development. In order to do that, we need the proper zoning and the proper land use planning to enable for that to happen. In areas where there's existing infrastructure, where there's water pipes, sewer pipes, power access to amenities like grocery stores and health care services. So one of the big things that I hope that CenterState CEO can do over the course of the next over the course of the next year or two is to really work with our local municipalities, to work with our state, city, county, our towns and our villages to find ways to grow the amount of land that is properly zoned for multi-family housing in areas where we have existing infrastructure. If we can do that. If we can make it easier for developers to build, if we can give them more options for building, I'm confident that we're going to be able to meet this moment. But we've got to make progress on that fundamental thing. We need more land that is properly zoned for multi-family housing in this region or else we're going to struggle to meet the demand that exists. It's a major investment housing, and there are a number of major infrastructure investments that this region needs in order to grow sustainably and inclusively. We've talked a little bit about it before on some of your past episodes and other episodes of season one, but what are some of the investments in our business and civic infrastructure that are top of mind for you right now? What do we risk if we don't invest in ourselves? Yeah, the list is long and unfortunately a long list in public infrastructure ends up with a pretty large price tag, which is something that I think on one hand is a little bit scary. On the other hand, I think is reflective of the challenge that we have, all of us now in CNY that we have to embrace. We cannot think small, right? We are not a small community. We are a growing community. We are going to be a much larger community in the very near future, not a smaller community. And that's a mindset shift. We need to now believe that those civic investments will pay returns for us and that we can't grow without them. Top of mind for me is our health care infrastructure. Many of our hospitals and our health care systems are under tremendous strain post-pandemic. And there's a lot of reasons for it, whether it's federal reimbursement rates or some of the challenges associated with COVID. But we need a world class health care infrastructure here in Central New York if we're going to attract the kind of talent that companies like Micron and TTM and these high tech manufacturers that are growing and investing here expect and demand. These investments are going to be in the billions of dollars. And that scares everyone from from our local partners to our state partners to our federal partners who ultimately are going to have to help us foot the bill. But they're necessary. Some of our health care systems and some of our health care facilities are extremely outdated. There have been stories in the Syracuse paper over the course of the last year or two about the wait times in our emergency rooms, which are frankly unacceptable. I think that we are going to need to embrace this idea of investing billions upon billions of dollars in our health care infrastructure going forward. It's everything from physical facilities all the way to building infrastructure that allows our our disparate regional health care systems to work better together. I will say that in the health care space, over my time, collaboration has not always been strong in that sector. There's been a lot of competition. I think we have to break that habit. I think we have to get better at improving that muscle memory for collaboration. But it's not just health care. We are going to need to figure out how to invest in more educational facilities, right? If we really grow our population by 100,000, 125,000 people over the course of the next, ten, 15, 20 years, we're going to need more schools. Right. How do we do that in a way that maps to the types of population growth that we're going to anticipate? I think that's a really important conversation that it's just starting to be had with some of our school superintendents and some of our policymakers in Albany. Certainly, we're excited to see the new STEAM School coming online that's going to add capacity for our students who are interested in science and the arts and technology. But that one investment alone is not going to be sufficient to meet the future need. And so, health care infrastructure and I'll just tell you, you know, a conversation that I was having with my 11-year-old son over the weekend, we need more amenities for kids and families. I know we're going to see groundbreaking this year on the aquarium at the Inner Harbor, which is a great step in the right direction. But we need more facilities like that. We need more opportunities if we are going to be the growing, dynamic, high-tech market that we are emerging as we need to show up in that way in every aspect of our life, not just in our economy, but in our culture and society and our recreational opportunities for people across the board. We're going to take a quick break here. In the meantime, here's a word from our sponsor NBT Bank. What I'm looking for in a bank is one that's looking out for me like NBT. I want a relationship and a team that supports me and my dreams like NBT. And let's face it, life can get challenging. I need a bank that's focused on me. They've been rated tops and all the things that matter. Like trust, customer service and financial advice. So when I need a bank, I can trust. It's always NBT and me. Welcome back. You're listening to Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank. I'm Katie Zilkosky, director of communications at CenterState CEO. Joining me today is CenterState CEO President Rob Simpson. And we are talking about what 2024 could hold for the regional economy. So, Rob, last year in this studio for the very first podcast episode, you said something Central New York needs to be better at is telling its story. So, do you think we've gotten better at it and what is the story we need to tell in 2024? I think we're getting better at it. I think I think being excellent at telling your story really stems from fully understanding who you are and where you're going. And I think, going back to the question you posed earlier, getting our community on the same page about telling our story is hard when there's skepticism and there's not a deep, deeply felt belief that we're moving in this positive direction, this exciting new direction, this dynamic, new set of investments that are coming that are going to change our region for the better going forward. As we see that level of confidence rise, I think we can count on other members in our community to be good ambassadors and faithful, faithful narrators of the story that we're writing together. I think that that to me is really exciting because I feel like anyone inside CenterState CEO can stand up and scream from the mountaintop about the great things that are happening, or the county executive or the mayor or any of our other public officials. And there's only so many people that are going to listen. Right. What what I think the average person in CNY they listen to the conversation that's happening in their neighborhood or around their dinner table and how are they feeling and experiencing our community. And the more people begin to experience our community as a growth community, the more people who experience that sense of positivity, that hope and they feel that momentum, they're going to communicate that to whoever, whether it's a spouse or partner sitting across the dinner table or whether it's a a colleague who is at a trade show on the other side of the world that they may be talking to. That’s ultimately what we're going to need to get our message out. I think at the end of 2023, we relaunched a project that CenterState CEO has partnered on with Advance Media. Something that I'm very excited about. This is CNY, thisisCNY.com for all of our region's residents, both employers and those who live here to share with their networks. It really helps us tell the story of the jobs and the growth happening here, how people can get access to those jobs, what's happening in our housing market, what's happening with projects like the aquarium in our community amenities? Telling little stories of people who've chosen to move here or move back here and amplifying those. So, do I think we're getting better at telling our stories? Yes, I think we're going to be best at telling our story when more people fully believe in the direction that we're going. But I feel progress. I'm very hopeful that that story is going to continue to evolve in a way that more people feel comfortable sharing. Is there any shift in story between 2023 and 2024? Are we keeping the same message? I think, you know, frankly, my observation, the growth that we are anticipating is coming sooner, not later. So, if anything, I feel a greater sense of urgency to get that that message and narrative out. I'm about to get on a plane here in a couple of days and I'm going out to the West Coast. A number of folks I know the county executive's going to be out there. Some of our partners from New York State, our colleague Nora Spillane is going to be joining me. We're going out to a major industry symposium for the semiconductor industry. We went last year. It was a great opportunity to interact with all of the major semiconductor companies and supply chain partners from all over the world. Not only will we learn a lot about the state of the semiconductor industry that can help us be smart about how to support Micron and their investment here in this region, but we're going to use the opportunity to talk to a lot of their supply chain partners about locating here in Central New York. This growth that we are now seeing coming. I think it is coming sooner than people want. I think the pace and the scale of development that I anticipate from Micron and from other companies in the microelectronics and semiconductor space, I think is going to happen more quickly. I think some of that has to do with global geopolitical conditions. We, unfortunately, are in a world that is filled with conflict. Conflict creates risk and uncertainty, and that risk and uncertainty leads our U.S. policymakers to say, ‘You know what? We want to make sure that we have a fully functioning, top of the line domestic semiconductor manufacturing industry here in the U.S.’ And it's the right move from a national security standpoint. So, there, I think, is a lot of federal investment, a lot of federal intention going into accelerating the pace of development because of the uncertainty that's happening in the world around us. So my top line message is I think it is coming faster than people anticipate. That is both exciting and a little terrifying, but we don't really have a choice. We need to step up and figure out how to manage that growth in in the best way and translate that growth to a positive economic and social outcomes for as many people in our community as we possibly can. It can feel really big. I mean, all of this conversation between geopolitical circumstances and macro and micro economic influences, it all is a lot to take in. So looking ahead to 2024, are there little moments that make you excited coming down the line, something that you know, you have on your calendar or maybe that you just know is in the next few months? That is something that you're looking forward to and are excited about. That is symbolic of the Central New York journey. Yeah, I think the short answer is yes. I think there are a lot of them. One that is very near and dear to my heart. We anticipate that in 2024 we're going to complete construction on a fully renovated Tech Garden. That building that was that was first renovated from an abandoned parking garage into an incubator back in 2004 is getting a complete makeover. If you drive by down Harrison Street right now, you'll see the building completely ripped apart. In the next week or two, we're going to start to see steel go up on the roof, and you're going to see this new structure start to take shape. That's incredibly exciting for me because it is something that is emblematic of the strategy that we set. The strategy being we need to start more companies than we lose in Central New York if we want to win the economic future. And the Tech Garden embodies that spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation. And to be able to make this what is going to be more than a $30 million investment in completely renovating that space and making it a state of the art incubator and accelerator is something that I'm incredibly proud of. We're actually, as an organization, we're very focused in 2024 on making sure that when we reopen those doors, we do it in the most complete and comprehensive way we can. But that's something that I think 2024 is going to bring the opportunity to reopen that facility. And I'm I'm wildly excited. I'm also pretty pretty jazzed about the opportunity that I anticipate in 2024 to travel across the ocean most likely to Asia, whether that's Singapore, Taiwan or other places, in Asia to to talk directly with a number of supply chain companies for Micron. We're in the early stages of starting to talk about what those kind of trade missions might be. Something that we would partner with, with the county and with the state and and with Micron on. But, you know, that's a that's a really fun thing to be able to think about traveling across, you know, tens of thousands of miles, traveling across oceans and meeting people that could be new partners of ours and having the chance to tell them the story of what's happening here, similar to what we did with Micron. I'll tell you that one of the most exciting things that I had an opportunity to do during the whole Micron recruitment process was just the chance to to tell Micron who we were and what we've been trying to accomplish and where we think we're going. That was so much fun because this organization has been at the center of trying to craft that narrative for a long time. And so the chance to do that again with other partners that we hope to welcome from all over the world to CNY work is something that I'm really looking forward to. Obviously, I love to travel. I love different cultures. I love to see new places. But most importantly, I love to be an ambassador for this community. And I'm really looking forward to that. Thank you so much for joining us here today and for kicking off season two with a good outlook on 2024. Thank you, Katie. Center State CEO's podcast Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank. is available on clickCNY.com and all major podcast platforms. After each episode you can join us on Click where we'll continue to talk about this topic and provide additional resources and links. In Click, you can listen to or watch every episode of Talk CNY Click is CenterState CEO’s Digital Chamber platform, where our members connect, learn and receive support from our staff. For new episode reminders, be sure to subscribe in your favorite podcast Listening app. If you're enjoying Talk CNY, consider leaving a quick review or a five star rating. the audio drifts away. So just be, can we move this up or not? No, that's as long as the arm goes. You can move that though. Like that part like this. Pull the lever here. Okay. You're going. Okay. Just so you could do that. He's good. Thanks. You all right? I can get out and we are recording. Are you going on the phone to Britney? Yes. Okay. All right, good. Thanks. No pressure. I'm going to break for collective or collective. Leg's broken. All right. Do you want to clap? Does that make you feel comfortable or you want to start this new year? No club? No, no, no. But clap. Thanks for joining us for a taxi and why I'm guilty. Sokolski, director of communications at Center Stage CEO and your new host. This year, we are starting our first episode by taking a look forward at the year 2024 ahead, but also taking a little look back at 2023. Joining me for this conversation is our state CEOs, President Rob Simpson. Rob, thanks for being here. Well, thanks so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to kicking off another season. Yeah, so am I. I'm excited to be here as your host this year. So like I said, we are starting off with 2023, taking a little look back before we look into the future. 23 was a big year for central New York. So what happened? Can you give me a few of the highlights of 2023 in your eyes? man, I think 2023 in a lot of ways. I think we think now we think about 2022 October, the Micron announcement as a high watermark for Central New York. In a lot of ways, I think 2023 surpassed those expectations. What I loved about 2023 was that we use the opportunity to just reinforce the momentum that we're building here in central New York. It's not just Micron, obviously. That's the biggest thing that we have going in. One of the most important things to happen to our economy in in decades, if not ever. But 2023 brought a whole host of new wins. We opened City Center in downtown Syracuse, one of the last large remaining vacant buildings in downtown that hadn't been redeveloped is now this beautiful new office space for Hayner Hoyt and C TAC in a number of other businesses. And that was incredibly exciting. We were able to announce a major investment from T Technologies, a California based company that makes them makes communications, hardware and components there in the radar and sensing space microelectronics. And they announced $110 million investment, creating a couple hundred new jobs here in central New York. That's remarkably exciting. Again, stacking wins and building momentum. And of course, we had at the end of the year, we had this remarkable accomplishment, Central New York, along with our partners in Rochester, Buffalo, and I think a designated as a federal tech hub, one of only 30 federal tech hubs designated across the nation. That designation comes with an opportunity now to compete for up to $50 million in federal funding to support initiatives across our thruway corridor. And in it opens the door to massive amounts of downstream federal funding that we would have never otherwise been able to compete for. I think to me, 2023 was the exclamation point, basically letting the world know that 2022 wasn't a fluke, Micron wasn't a fluke. They came here because this was a region on the rise, and in 2023 I think we demonstrated that our ceiling is a lot, you know, really far above our head. Yeah, I mean, and on that note, looking into the future a little bit here in 2024, it sounds like we have a good steady foundation, a lot of momentum, like you said, going into this new year. And to get a little bit of perspective from a lot of our members each year, we conduct the economic forecast report. And right now. So we went out, we talked to members of the business community, took a survey from them. We take all that data from them, compile it into a report that then gets released at the economic forecast breakfast on January 31st. So that report is still being put together. It's very detailed lots that goes into it. But we do have some preliminary data points that we can share with our listeners today. The first one I want to look at is some of that. You said Fluke earlier that maybe some people could think that in the very beginning. So there was some skepticism. Our last year's report showed that shocking. Yes, that's right. But there was some skepticism around some of these really big major projects. Will they come to fruition? But this year's report, 68% of our respondents said that they were either somewhat more confident or much more confident that these major economic development projects will come to fruition. So what do you think made the difference in going from skepticism to confidence for a lot of our community? Well, listen, I think I've been doing I've been doing this long enough to know that, you know, skepticism is just an inherent characteristic here, essentially. Org I do think that the community is making progress and at not always thinking that the sky is falling when good news is being announced. I've seen the way people are reacting to some of these announcements. It's is very different right now, which is very rewarding. That said, I think there's a couple of things as it relates to Micron specifically. The community had a chance over the course of 2023 to get to know this company. They got to watch the company spend massive amounts of time here in central New York to start to hire people here in central New York to engage with different community based organizations and to and to make significant investments, millions of dollars into clean room. And it also see, you know, ten, $10 million into STEM education, science, technology, engineering, arts and math, including the STEM school in downtown Syracuse. You know, big, major commitments that the company is making in workforce and education and community engagement that I think taken together over time, reinforced perhaps a narrative that, okay, this company, they're real, they're here, they're in this with us. Whereas, you know, in October of 2022, people said, okay, it's a nice, splashy announcement, but, you know, what are they really going to do now? We've had a chance to see it, I think, more over in 2023. The community had a chance to see that we weren't putting all our eggs in the micron basket. Obviously, as we said before, it is the biggest thing and the most important thing that we are working on. That said, you know, we continue to put these wins together, small businesses expanding and companies hiring the tech hubs designation that I hope project confidence to our community, that our elected officials are public sector partners, are private sector partners, are working in concert with one another to execute on our strategy. It's not about projects, right? Each of these projects is the is is a remarkable accomplishment. It's something to celebrate. But these projects are the outcome of investment in strategy over a long period of time to rebuild our center city, to focus on microelectronics, to put central New York back into a place of economic we global relevance and and I and I hope that sustained activity, sustained strategic investments are what is fueling some of that confidence. But I think we also can't ignore the fact that it is increasingly likely that that our economy is going to thread this almost impossible needle right at the end, at the beginning of last year. And our forecast, I remember the the speaker that we had at our forecast breakfast talking about, you know, this really difficult needle that the Fed had to thread in order to bring about a soft landing rate where they raise interest rates, but don't push us into a recession. And increasingly, it looks like that's what's going to happen. Interest rates have have stayed high, inflation has come down, Jobs and economic performance have stayed strong. And and I think that those macroeconomic conditions are also part of what's contributing to people's confidence. Now, you mentioned just now that a lot of this is people working together on individual projects. Is there a moment of collaboration over the past year that you can think of that made you think this is why people are more confident, this is why this is working, where there were members coming together to make something bigger than just an individual project or building or opening a new storefront. Yeah, I mean, I think in a lot of respects to me, the collaboration that we had with Ithaca, Buffalo, Rochester around the tech hubs designation was maybe one of those eye opening moments. I think I've spent a lot of my career here in session. You are talking about how we as a community are central to our community. Our Syracuse community needs to work more closely together, and I'm really proud of the fact that we are. Just the other day, the county executive was inaugurated for his next term and he talked about how, you know, a lot of our success is the result of collaboration, right? We've come a long way within our Central York market. But what I love and what gives me so much optimism for the future is that we now see that collaborative mindset shifting not just within our region, but across the upstate New York footprint. And if we can successfully collaborate with Rochester and Buffalo, if we can collaborate better with Utica, Rome, if we can partner with Albany and other parts of our state, we are going to be in a much stronger position as an entire upstate New York corridor for the future. And so the fact that we came together for the first time in my career and strategically set out to partner with Buffalo and Rochester on a major federal opportunity, we put a great application together. And not only that, but we won that designation right. To me, that just reinforces the power of collaboration, right? When you do something hard, you're not sure if it's going to work, and then you get rewarded by getting this this important federal designation. I think it makes us all more likely to want to come back to the table and collaborate on something else down the road. And already we are working on a number of the exciting collaborations with our partners across the Thruway corridor for 2024 that I'm I'm really excited about in. Is that within tech hubs or is that outside of tech? It's what opens a door, right? It's within tech hubs, it's adjacent to tech hubs. I think there's a lot of discussion right now amongst our thruway corridor partners around workforce development and how we can up our game in terms of ensuring that our communities are meeting the moment. Employers right now have thousands of job openings and we need to help them access the labor pools necessary to fill those jobs. But we also need to ensure that that we're creating opportunity and access for historically marginalized populations who have been historically excluded from some of those jobs. And the partnerships and the creativity and the innovation that I'm seeing applied to workforce development or to the accelerator and innovation programs that we see happening in places like the Tech Garden and in Buffalo, Rochester, Albany. I think really the world is our oyster in terms of what more we can do, not just within our Central York footprint but across the upstate corridor. So going back to one of the other data points that we have from the economic forecasts report, So maybe a surprise to No. One. Housing was a major concern for many members of our business community, and particularly those in the human and social services sector are concerned about vulnerable populations securing housing. We have a number or we have housing initiatives here that our state's young that we're working through. How do you see those progressing into 2024? Listen, I think we said this immediately after, like from either announcement at the end of 2020 to that that in a lot of respects, housing is the is, you know, is as important as jobs to our economic future. And and I think we've seen that play out over the course of last year. We have not built enough housing in the last 12 months. We frankly haven't built enough housing in the last 20 years. This is not just a Syracuse and Central Europe problem. This is a this is a New York state problem. Frankly, it's a U.S. problem also. But in particular, certainly we're feeling the pain points. People who are living in our community right now are feeling the pain points. We need a lot more housing. We need to be building somewhere on the order of 2500 units of housing every year. We're building about 350 right now. Now, in 2023 was a tough year and maybe not illustrative of what our potential is, because we've seen interest rates move higher than they have at any point in the last 20 years, making it that much more difficult for someone to buy a home. But also, if you think about it, that much more difficult for a developer to take out a loan and finance a multifamily development. So we we think that the number of units that could have been built in 2023 was a lot higher than the 300 or so that ultimately got built. And we're confident that as interest rates start to come down, we will start to see more housing built. Right now we have somewhere on the order of 6500 to 7000 units of housing that developers are talking to our team about wanting to build in the Central York footprint. That's a huge number. If we can convert even a fraction of that, we're going to make a big dent in the problem that we have. But this is not a one time problem. This is a trend that we're going to have to keep pace with every year going forward in this community less. We run into some of the challenges that folks have had in faster growing communities, places like Boise and Chattanooga and Greensboro and in other communities like that, that Nashville that have been have grown faster than their housing markets have. So what are we doing about it? First, a couple of things. One, we do have a housing task force here at Sutter State, so we've got 20 or 25 members from across segments of our of our business community and our employer network and are not for profit organizations who are working together on trying to develop some policy opportunities to move the needle on housing. Most importantly, what we want to be able to do as a private sector based organization is to support the good work that the city is doing. They have undertaken a housing study. They're in the phase two right now. The county is working with the same consultant on county wide housing study. New York State is also working on a housing study for the central New York region as a whole. And all of these are designed to nest together to give us a complete picture of what's happening, what our current housing demand is, where there is going to be need for housing, and what kinds of housing options for everything from affordable to market rate, single family home, multifamily home. We're going to need to build the fundamental challenge that I see with housing is that in New York State we operate under a home rule system, which means every municipality controls, to some extent their land use and their zoning right now inundated county, I believe the number is 3% of of land in a county is zoned for multifamily housing development. Not on that is not a lot when you think about it. And the reality is we need exponentially more housing in order to do that in a way that doesn't create sprawl, we need to embrace multifamily housing and higher density housing development than we've historically been used to, right? There's this idea that you can go build a single family home on a lot, and that's the American dream. And for some it is. For many it's not. Demographics are changing, people's tastes are changing. But we simply cannot build enough housing, whether it's not like a county or Oswego or Cayuga or anywhere else, without embracing a higher density footprint of housing development. In order to do that, we need the proper zoning and the proper land use planning to enable for that to happen in areas where there is existing infrastructure, whether it's water pipes, sewer pipes, power access to amenities like grocery stores and health care services. So one of the big things that I hope that center state can do over the course of the next over the course of the next year or two is to really work with our local municipalities, to work with our state, city, county, our towns and our villages to find ways to grow the amount of land that is properly zoned for multi-family housing in areas where we have existing infrastructure. If we can do that, if we can make it easier for developers to build, if we can give them more options for building, I'm confident that we're going to be able to meet this moment. But we've got to make progress on that fundamental thing. We need more land that is properly zoned for multi-family housing in this region or else we're going to struggle to meet the demand that exists. It's a major investment housing, and there are a number of major infrastructure investments that this region needs in order to grow sustainably and inclusively. We've talked a little bit about it before on some of your past episodes and another episode of the season one, but what are some of the investments in our business and civic infrastructure that are top of mind for you right now? And what do we risk if we don't invest in ourselves? Yeah, the list is long and unfortunately a long list in public infrastructure ends up with a pretty large price tag, which is something that I think on one hand is a little bit scary. On the other hand, I think is reflective of the challenge that we have, all of us now essentially work that we have to embrace. We cannot think small. I we are not a small community. We are a growing community. We are going to be a much larger community in the very near future, not a smaller community. And that's a mindset shift. We need to now believe that that those civic investments will pay returns for us and that we can't grow without them. Top of mind for me is our health care infrastructure. Many of our our our hospitals and our health care systems are under tremendous strain post-pandemic, and there's a lot of reasons for it, whether it's federal reimbursement rates or some of the challenges associated with COVID. But we need a world class health care infrastructure here in central New York if we're going to attract the kind of talent that companies like Micron and Keaton and these high tech manufacturers that are growing and investing here expect in demand, these investments are going to be in the billions of dollars. And that scares everyone from from our local partners to our state partners to our federal partners who ultimately are going to have to help us foot the bill. But they're necessary. Some of our health care systems and some of our health care facilities are extremely outdated. There have been stories in the Syracuse paper over the course of the last year or two about the wait times in our emergency rooms, which are frankly unacceptable and I think that we we are going to need to embrace this idea of investing billions upon billions of dollars in our health care infrastructure going forward. It's everything from physical facilities all the way to building infrastructure that allows our our disparate regional health care systems to work better together. I will say that in the health care space over my time, collaboration has not always been strong in that sector. There's been a lot of competition. I think we have to break that habit. I think we have to get better at improving that, that muscle memory for collaboration. But it's not just health care. We are going to need to figure out how to invest in more educational facilities, right? If we really grow our population by 100,000, 125,000 people over the course of the next, you know, ten, 15, 20 years, we're going to need more schools. Right. And how do we do that in a way that maps to the types of population growth that we're going to anticipate? I think that's a really important conversation that is just starting to be had with some of our school superintendents and some of our policymakers in in in Albany. Certainly, we're excited to see the new steam school coming online that's going to add capacity for our our you know, for students who are interested in the science and the arts and technology. But that one investment alone is not going to be sufficient to meet the future need. And so, you know, health care infrastructure and I'll just tell you a conversation that I was having with my 11 year old son over the weekend. We need more amenities for kids and families. And, you know, I know we were going to see groundbreaking this year on the on the aquarium at Theater Harbor, which is a great step in the right direction. But we need more facilities like that. We need more opportunities if we are going to be a growing dynamic, high tech market that we are emerging as we need to show up in that way in every aspect of our life, not just in our economy, but in in our culture and society and recreational opportunities for people across the board. That's why we're going to take a quick break here and we're going to take a quick break here. In the meantime, here's a word from our sponsor and big bank. All right. Sorry, I'm rambling a lot. Not You're good. Keep. Yeah, You come back like I'm Rob. I want you to like you. Give us a little nugget or things that you were really thinking about. As we go into the new year, there's not one thing. Thank you for saving you hurting me. You can't. You can't see me giving you the middle finger from this side of the. No, I can feel. You are. Yeah. Good. That's. That was the point. Are you the thinking more along the lines of, like, cool things that are on the horizon? Like, what are we looking at the year ahead? Like, what? Are you excited about? That is my last question. Do you want me to hold that for you? Want me to bring it up first? Now, if that's your last question, but I would just me was really thoughtful about that. Okay. So what I'm excited about, I'll figure it out between now and then. All right, you go. What? There's a question between so perfect. Okay. Welcome back. You're listening to Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank. I'm Kelly Sikorski, director of communications at Center Stage SEO. Joining me today is center Stage CEO, President Rob Simpson. And we are talking about what 2024 could hold for the regional economy. So, Rob, last year in this studio for the very first podcast episode, you said something Central New York needs to be better at is telling its story. And so do you think we've gotten better at it and what is the story we need to tell in 2024? I think we're getting better at it. I think I think be excellent at telling your story really stems from fully understanding who you are and where you're going. And I think, you know, going back to the question you posed earlier, getting our community on the same page about telling our story is hard when there's skepticism and there's not a deep, deeply felt belief that we're moving in this positive direction, this exciting new direction, this dynamic, new set of investments that are coming that are going to change our region for the better going forward as we see that level of confidence rise, I think we can count on other members in our community to be good ambassadors and faithful, faithful narrators of the story that we're writing together. I think that that, you know, frankly, to me is really exciting because I feel like anyone inside Center State CEO can stand up and scream from the mountaintop about the great things that are happening, or the county executive or the mayor or any of our other public officials. And there's only so many people that are going to listen. Right. What what I think the average person said they listened to the conversation that's happening in their neighborhood or around the dinner table and how are they feeling and experiencing our community. And the more people begin to experience our community as a growth community, the more people who experience that sense of positivity, that hope, and they feel that momentum, they're going to communicate that to whoever, whether it's a spouse or partner sitting across a dinner table or whether it's a a colleague who is at a trade show on the other side of the world that they may be talking to. And that's ultimately what we're going to need to get our message out. I think at the end of 2023, we relaunched a project that Center State SEO is partnered on with Advanced Media. Something that I'm very excited about. This is CNY, this is CNY dot com, as it is a great opportunity for all of our region's residents, both employers and those who live here to share with their networks. It really helps us tell the story of the jobs and the growth happening here, how people can get access to those jobs, what's happening in our housing market, what's happening with projects like the aquarium in our and our community amenities are telling little stories of people who've chosen to move here or move back here and amplifying those. So do I think we're getting better at telling our stories? Yes, I think we're going to be best at telling our story when more people fully believe the direction that we're going. But I feel progress, and I'm very hopeful that that that story is going to continue to evolve in a way that that more people feel comfortable sharing in. Is there any shift in story between 2023 and 2024, or are we keeping the same message? I think, you know, frankly, my observation, the growth that we are anticipating is coming sooner, not later. So if anything, I feel a greater sense of urgency to get that that message, a narrative out. I'm about to get on a plane here in a couple of days and I'm going out to the west Coast. A number of folks I know the county executive is going to be out there. Some of our partners from New York State, our colleague North Plains, can be joining me. And we're going out to a major industry symposium for the Semiconductor industry. We went last year. It was a great, great opportunity to interact with all of the major semiconductor companies and supply chain partners from all over the world. Not only will we learn a lot about the state of the semiconductor industry that can help us be smart about how to support Micron and their investment here in this region, but we're going to use the opportunity to talk to a lot of their supply chain partners about locating here in central New York this growth that we have. We're now seeing coming. I think it is coming sooner than people want. I think the pace and the scale of development that I anticipate from Micron and from other companies in the microelectronics and semiconductor space, I think is going to happen more quickly. I think some of that has to do with global geopolitical conditions. I think we unfortunately are in a world that is filled with conflict. Conflict creates risk and uncertainty, and that risk and uncertainty leads US policymakers to say, you know what, we want to make sure that we have a fully functioning, you know, top of the line domestic semiconductor manufacturing industry here in the U.S. And it's the right move from a national security standpoint. So there, I think, is a lot of federal investment, a lot of federal attention going into accelerating the pace of development because of the uncertainty that's happening in the world around us. So my top line message is I think it is coming faster than people anticipate. That is both exciting and a little terrifying. But we don't really have a choice. We need to step up and figure out how to manage that growth and in the best way and translate that growth to positive economic and social outcomes for as many people in our community as we possibly can. It can feel really big. I mean, all of this conversation, it's very between geopolitical circumstances and macro and micro economic influences. It all is a lot to take in. So looking ahead to 2024, are there little moments that make you excited coming down the line, something that, you know, you have on your calendar or maybe that you just know is in the next few months? That is something that you're looking forward to and are excited about that is symbolic of the central New York journey. Yeah, I think the short answer is yes. I think there are a lot of them. One that is very near and dear to my heart. We anticipate that in 2024 we're going to complete construction on a fully renovated tech garden. That building that was that was first renovated from an abandoned parking garage into an incubator back in 2004 is getting a complete makeover. If you drive by down Harris's street right now, you'll see the building completely ripped apart. In the next week or two, we're going to start to see steel go up on the roof, and you're going to see this new structure start to take shape. That's incredibly exciting for me because it is something that is emblematic of the strategy that we set. The strategy being we need to start more companies than we lose in Central York if we want to win the economic future and the tech our new bodies. That spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation and to be able to make this what is going to be more than a $30 million investment in completely renovating that space and making it a state of the art incubator and accelerator is something that I'm incredibly proud of. We're actually, as an organization, we're very focused in 2024 on and making sure that when we reopen those doors, we do it in the most complete and comprehensive way we can. But that's something that I think 2024 is going to bring the opportunity to reopen that facility. And I'm I'm wildly exciting. I'm also pretty pretty jazzed about the opportunity that I anticipate in 2024 to travel across the ocean, most like in Asia, whether that's Singapore, Taiwan or other places, you know, in in Asia too, to talk directly with a number of supply chain companies. For Micron, we're in the early stages of starting to talk about what those kind of trade missions might be. Right? Something that we would partner with, with the county and with the state and and with Micron on. But, you know, that's a that's a really fun thing to be able to think about traveling across, you know, tens of thousands of miles, traveling across oceans and in meeting people that could be new partners of ours and having the chance to tell them the story of what's happening here, similar to what we did with Micron, I'll tell you that one of the most exciting things that I had an opportunity to do during the whole Micron recruiting process was just the chance to tell Micron who we were and what we've been trying to accomplish and where we think we're going. That was so much fun because this organization has been at the center of trying to craft that narrative for a long time. And so the chance to do that again with other partners that we hope to welcome from all over the world to Central York is something that I'm really looking forward to. Obviously, I love to travel. I love to I love different cultures. I love to see new places. But most importantly, I'd love to be an ambassador for this community. And and I'm really looking forward to that. Rob, thank you so much for joining us here today and for kicking off season two with a good outlook on 2024. Thank you, Carrie. Yeah. Anything else you want to add? great. Okay. I'm good with that. All right, Rock and roll. All righty. Clap. Anything we want to report. So grateful for your economic forecast Breakfast promo. you want to do it here? Do it on the phone. No, I mean, if we get stuff set up, we can do it. Yeah, It's easy recording, so we can just do it with Brittany's phone if you want to do it. But I guess we could do. Yeah. How ever you'd like to. If you want to sit right here and do it, you want to sit right here, you can square up in the center if you want to do so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to kicking off another season. Yeah, so am I. I'm excited to be here as your host this year. So like I said, we are starting off with 2023, taking a little look back before we look into the future. 23 was a big year for central New York. So what happened? Can you give me a few of the highlights of 2023 in your eyes? man, I think 2023 in a lot of ways. I think we think now we think about 2022 October, the Micron announcement as a high watermark for Central New York. In a lot of ways, I think 2023 surpassed those expectations. What I loved about 2023 was that we use the opportunity to just reinforce the momentum that we're building here in central New York. It's not just Micron, obviously. That's the biggest thing that we have going in. One of the most important things to happen to our economy in in decades, if not ever. But 2023 brought a whole host of new wins. We opened City Center in downtown Syracuse, one of the last large remaining vacant buildings in downtown that hadn't been redeveloped is now this beautiful new office space for Hayner Hoyt and C TAC in a number of other businesses. And that was incredibly exciting. We were able to announce a major investment from T Technologies, a California based company that makes them makes communications, hardware and components there in the radar and sensing space microelectronics. And they announced $110 million investment, creating a couple hundred new jobs here in central New York. That's remarkably exciting. Again, stacking wins and building momentum. And of course, we had at the end of the year, we had this remarkable accomplishment, Central New York, along with our partners in Rochester, Buffalo, and I think a designated as a federal tech hub, one of only 30 federal tech hubs designated across the nation. That designation comes with an opportunity now to compete for up to $50 million in federal funding to support initiatives across our thruway corridor. And in it opens the door to massive amounts of downstream federal funding that we would have never otherwise been able to compete for. I think to me, 2023 was the exclamation point, basically letting the world know that 2022 wasn't a fluke, Micron wasn't a fluke. They came here because this was a region on the rise, and in 2023 I think we demonstrated that our ceiling is a lot, you know, really far above our head. Yeah, I mean, and on that note, looking into the future a little bit here in 2024, it sounds like we have a good steady foundation, a lot of momentum, like you said, going into this new year. And to get a little bit of perspective from a lot of our members each year, we conduct the economic forecast report. And right now. So we went out, we talked to members of the business community, took a survey from them. We take all that data from them, compile it into a report that then gets released at the economic forecast breakfast on January 31st. So that report is still being put together. It's very detailed lots that goes into it. But we do have some preliminary data points that we can share with our listeners today. The first one I want to look at is some of that. You said Fluke earlier that maybe some people could think that in the very beginning. So there was some skepticism. Our last year's report showed that shocking. Yes, that's right. But there was some skepticism around some of these really big major projects. Will they come to fruition? But this year's report, 68% of our respondents said that they were either somewhat more confident or much more confident that these major economic development projects will come to fruition. So what do you think made the difference in going from skepticism to confidence for a lot of our community? Well, listen, I think I've been doing I've been doing this long enough to know that, you know, skepticism is just an inherent characteristic here, essentially. Org I do think that the community is making progress and at not always thinking that the sky is falling when good news is being announced. I've seen the way people are reacting to some of these announcements. It's is very different right now, which is very rewarding. That said, I think there's a couple of things as it relates to Micron specifically. The community had a chance over the course of 2023 to get to know this company. They got to watch the company spend massive amounts of time here in central New York to start to hire people here in central New York to engage with different community based organizations and to and to make significant investments, millions of dollars into clean room. And it also see, you know, ten, $10 million into STEM education, science, technology, engineering, arts and math, including the STEM school in downtown Syracuse. You know, big, major commitments that the company is making in workforce and education and community engagement that I think taken together over time, reinforced perhaps a narrative that, okay, this company, they're real, they're here, they're in this with us. Whereas, you know, in October of 2022, people said, okay, it's a nice, splashy announcement, but, you know, what are they really going to do now? We've had a chance to see it, I think, more over in 2023. The community had a chance to see that we weren't putting all our eggs in the micron basket. Obviously, as we said before, it is the biggest thing and the most important thing that we are working on. That said, you know, we continue to put these wins together, small businesses expanding and companies hiring the tech hubs designation that I hope project confidence to our community, that our elected officials are public sector partners, are private sector partners, are working in concert with one another to execute on our strategy. It's not about projects, right? Each of these projects is the is is a remarkable accomplishment. It's something to celebrate. But these projects are the outcome of investment in strategy over a long period of time to rebuild our center city, to focus on microelectronics, to put central New York back into a place of economic we global relevance and and I and I hope that sustained activity, sustained strategic investments are what is fueling some of that confidence. But I think we also can't ignore the fact that it is increasingly likely that that our economy is going to thread this almost impossible needle right at the end, at the beginning of last year. And our forecast, I remember the the speaker that we had at our forecast breakfast talking about, you know, this really difficult needle that the Fed had to thread in order to bring about a soft landing rate where they raise interest rates, but don't push us into a recession. And increasingly, it looks like that's what's going to happen. Interest rates have have stayed high, inflation has come down, Jobs and economic performance have stayed strong. And and I think that those macroeconomic conditions are also part of what's contributing to people's confidence. Now, you mentioned just now that a lot of this is people working together on individual projects. Is there a moment of collaboration over the past year that you can think of that made you think this is why people are more confident, this is why this is working, where there were members coming together to make something bigger than just an individual project or building or opening a new storefront. Yeah, I mean, I think in a lot of respects to me, the collaboration that we had with Ithaca, Buffalo, Rochester around the tech hubs designation was maybe one of those eye opening moments. I think I've spent a lot of my career here in session. You are talking about how we as a community are central to our community. Our Syracuse community needs to work more closely together, and I'm really proud of the fact that we are. Just the other day, the county executive was inaugurated for his next term and he talked about how, you know, a lot of our success is the result of collaboration, right? We've come a long way within our Central York market. But what I love and what gives me so much optimism for the future is that we now see that collaborative mindset shifting not just within our region, but across the upstate New York footprint. And if we can successfully collaborate with Rochester and Buffalo, if we can collaborate better with Utica, Rome, if we can partner with Albany and other parts of our state, we are going to be in a much stronger position as an entire upstate New York corridor for the future. And so the fact that we came together for the first time in my career and strategically set out to partner with Buffalo and Rochester on a major federal opportunity, we put a great application together. And not only that, but we won that designation right. To me, that just reinforces the power of collaboration, right? When you do something hard, you're not sure if it's going to work, and then you get rewarded by getting this this important federal designation. I think it makes us all more likely to want to come back to the table and collaborate on something else down the road. And already we are working on a number of the exciting collaborations with our partners across the Thruway corridor for 2024 that I'm I'm really excited about in. Is that within tech hubs or is that outside of tech? It's what opens a door, right? It's within tech hubs, it's adjacent to tech hubs. I think there's a lot of discussion right now amongst our thruway corridor partners around workforce development and how we can up our game in terms of ensuring that our communities are meeting the moment. Employers right now have thousands of job openings and we need to help them access the labor pools necessary to fill those jobs. But we also need to ensure that that we're creating opportunity and access for historically marginalized populations who have been historically excluded from some of those jobs. And the partnerships and the creativity and the innovation that I'm seeing applied to workforce development or to the accelerator and innovation programs that we see happening in places like the Tech Garden and in Buffalo, Rochester, Albany. I think really the world is our oyster in terms of what more we can do, not just within our Central York footprint but across the upstate corridor. So going back to one of the other data points that we have from the economic forecasts report, So maybe a surprise to No. One. Housing was a major concern for many members of our business community, and particularly those in the human and social services sector are concerned about vulnerable populations securing housing. We have a number or we have housing initiatives here that our state's young that we're working through. How do you see those progressing into 2024? Listen, I think we said this immediately after, like from either announcement at the end of 2020 to that that in a lot of respects, housing is the is, you know, is as important as jobs to our economic future. And and I think we've seen that play out over the course of last year. We have not built enough housing in the last 12 months. We frankly haven't built enough housing in the last 20 years. This is not just a Syracuse and Central Europe problem. This is a this is a New York state problem. Frankly, it's a U.S. problem also. But in particular, certainly we're feeling the pain points. People who are living in our community right now are feeling the pain points. We need a lot more housing. We need to be building somewhere on the order of 2500 units of housing every year. We're building about 350 right now. Now, in 2023 was a tough year and maybe not illustrative of what our potential is, because we've seen interest rates move higher than they have at any point in the last 20 years, making it that much more difficult for someone to buy a home. But also, if you think about it, that much more difficult for a developer to take out a loan and finance a multifamily development. So we we think that the number of units that could have been built in 2023 was a lot higher than the 300 or so that ultimately got built. And we're confident that as interest rates start to come down, we will start to see more housing built. Right now we have somewhere on the order of 6500 to 7000 units of housing that developers are talking to our team about wanting to build in the Central York footprint. That's a huge number. If we can convert even a fraction of that, we're going to make a big dent in the problem that we have. But this is not a one time problem. This is a trend that we're going to have to keep pace with every year going forward in this community less. We run into some of the challenges that folks have had in faster growing communities, places like Boise and Chattanooga and Greensboro and in other communities like that, that Nashville that have been have grown faster than their housing markets have. So what are we doing about it? First, a couple of things. One, we do have a housing task force here at Sutter State, so we've got 20 or 25 members from across segments of our of our business community and our employer network and are not for profit organizations who are working together on trying to develop some policy opportunities to move the needle on housing. Most importantly, what we want to be able to do as a private sector based organization is to support the good work that the city is doing. They have undertaken a housing study. They're in the phase two right now. The county is working with the same consultant on county wide housing study. New York State is also working on a housing study for the central New York region as a whole. And all of these are designed to nest together to give us a complete picture of what's happening, what our current housing demand is, where there is going to be need for housing, and what kinds of housing options for everything from affordable to market rate, single family home, multifamily home. We're going to need to build the fundamental challenge that I see with housing is that in New York State we operate under a home rule system, which means every municipality controls, to some extent their land use and their zoning right now inundated county, I believe the number is 3% of of land in a county is zoned for multifamily housing development. Not on that is not a lot when you think about it. And the reality is we need exponentially more housing in order to do that in a way that doesn't create sprawl, we need to embrace multifamily housing and higher density housing development than we've historically been used to, right? There's this idea that you can go build a single family home on a lot, and that's the American dream. And for some it is. For many it's not. Demographics are changing, people's tastes are changing. But we simply cannot build enough housing, whether it's not like a county or Oswego or Cayuga or anywhere else, without embracing a higher density footprint of housing development. In order to do that, we need the proper zoning and the proper land use planning to enable for that to happen in areas where there is existing infrastructure, whether it's water pipes, sewer pipes, power access to amenities like grocery stores and health care services. So one of the big things that I hope that center state can do over the course of the next over the course of the next year or two is to really work with our local municipalities, to work with our state, city, county, our towns and our villages to find ways to grow the amount of land that is properly zoned for multi-family housing in areas where we have existing infrastructure. If we can do that, if we can make it easier for developers to build, if we can give them more options for building, I'm confident that we're going to be able to meet this moment. But we've got to make progress on that fundamental thing. We need more land that is properly zoned for multi-family housing in this region or else we're going to struggle to meet the demand that exists. It's a major investment housing, and there are a number of major infrastructure investments that this region needs in order to grow sustainably and inclusively. We've talked a little bit about it before on some of your past episodes and another episode of the season one, but what are some of the investments in our business and civic infrastructure that are top of mind for you right now? And what do we risk if we don't invest in ourselves? Yeah, the list is long and unfortunately a long list in public infrastructure ends up with a pretty large price tag, which is something that I think on one hand is a little bit scary. On the other hand, I think is reflective of the challenge that we have, all of us now essentially work that we have to embrace. We cannot think small. I we are not a small community. We are a growing community. We are going to be a much larger community in the very near future, not a smaller community. And that's a mindset shift. We need to now believe that that those civic investments will pay returns for us and that we can't grow without them. Top of mind for me is our health care infrastructure. Many of our our our hospitals and our health care systems are under tremendous strain post-pandemic, and there's a lot of reasons for it, whether it's federal reimbursement rates or some of the challenges associated with COVID. But we need a world class health care infrastructure here in central New York if we're going to attract the kind of talent that companies like Micron and Keaton and these high tech manufacturers that are growing and investing here expect in demand, these investments are going to be in the billions of dollars. And that scares everyone from from our local partners to our state partners to our federal partners who ultimately are going to have to help us foot the bill. But they're necessary. Some of our health care systems and some of our health care facilities are extremely outdated. There have been stories in the Syracuse paper over the course of the last year or two about the wait times in our emergency rooms, which are frankly unacceptable and I think that we we are going to need to embrace this idea of investing billions upon billions of dollars in our health care infrastructure going forward. It's everything from physical facilities all the way to building infrastructure that allows our our disparate regional health care systems to work better together. I will say that in the health care space over my time, collaboration has not always been strong in that sector. There's been a lot of competition. I think we have to break that habit. I think we have to get better at improving that, that muscle memory for collaboration. But it's not just health care. We are going to need to figure out how to invest in more educational facilities, right? If we really grow our population by 100,000, 125,000 people over the course of the next, you know, ten, 15, 20 years, we're going to need more schools. Right. And how do we do that in a way that maps to the types of population growth that we're going to anticipate? I think that's a really important conversation that is just starting to be had with some of our school superintendents and some of our policymakers in in in Albany. Certainly, we're excited to see the new steam school coming online that's going to add capacity for our our you know, for students who are interested in the science and the arts and technology. But that one investment alone is not going to be sufficient to meet the future need. And so, you know, health care infrastructure and I'll just tell you a conversation that I was having with my 11 year old son over the weekend. We need more amenities for kids and families. And, you know, I know we were going to see groundbreaking this year on the on the aquarium at Theater Harbor, which is a great step in the right direction. But we need more facilities like that. We need more opportunities if we are going to be a growing dynamic, high tech market that we are emerging as we need to show up in that way in every aspect of our life, not just in our economy, but in in our culture and society and recreational opportunities for people across the board. That's why we're going to take a quick break here and we're going to take a quick break here. In the meantime, here's a word from our sponsor and big bank. All right. Sorry, I'm rambling a lot. Not You're good. Keep. Yeah, You come back like I'm Rob. I want you to like you. Give us a little nugget or things that you were really thinking about. As we go into the new year, there's not one thing. Thank you for saving you hurting me. You can't. You can't see me giving you the middle finger from this side of the. No, I can feel. You are. Yeah. Good. That's. That was the point. Are you the thinking more along the lines of, like, cool things that are on the horizon? Like, what are we looking at the year ahead? Like, what? Are you excited about? That is my last question. Do you want me to hold that for you? Want me to bring it up first? Now, if that's your last question, but I would just me was really thoughtful about that. Okay. So what I'm excited about, I'll figure it out between now and then. All right, you go. What? There's a question between so perfect. Okay. Welcome back. You're listening to Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank. I'm Kelly Sikorski, director of communications at Center Stage SEO. Joining me today is center Stage CEO, President Rob Simpson. And we are talking about what 2024 could hold for the regional economy. So, Rob, last year in this studio for the very first podcast episode, you said something Central New York needs to be better at is telling its story. And so do you think we've gotten better at it and what is the story we need to tell in 2024? I think we're getting better at it. I think I think be excellent at telling your story really stems from fully understanding who you are and where you're going. And I think, you know, going back to the question you posed earlier, getting our community on the same page about telling our story is hard when there's skepticism and there's not a deep, deeply felt belief that we're moving in this positive direction, this exciting new direction, this dynamic, new set of investments that are coming that are going to change our region for the better going forward as we see that level of confidence rise, I think we can count on other members in our community to be good ambassadors and faithful, faithful narrators of the story that we're writing together. I think that that, you know, frankly, to me is really exciting because I feel like anyone inside Center State CEO can stand up and scream from the mountaintop about the great things that are happening, or the county executive or the mayor or any of our other public officials. And there's only so many people that are going to listen. Right. What what I think the average person said they listened to the conversation that's happening in their neighborhood or around the dinner table and how are they feeling and experiencing our community. And the more people begin to experience our community as a growth community, the more people who experience that sense of positivity, that hope, and they feel that momentum, they're going to communicate that to whoever, whether it's a spouse or partner sitting across a dinner table or whether it's a a colleague who is at a trade show on the other side of the world that they may be talking to. And that's ultimately what we're going to need to get our message out. I think at the end of 2023, we relaunched a project that Center State SEO is partnered on with Advanced Media. Something that I'm very excited about. This is CNY, this is CNY dot com, as it is a great opportunity for all of our region's residents, both employers and those who live here to share with their networks. It really helps us tell the story of the jobs and the growth happening here, how people can get access to those jobs, what's happening in our housing market, what's happening with projects like the aquarium in our and our community amenities are telling little stories of people who've chosen to move here or move back here and amplifying those. So do I think we're getting better at telling our stories? Yes, I think we're going to be best at telling our story when more people fully believe the direction that we're going. But I feel progress, and I'm very hopeful that that that story is going to continue to evolve in a way that that more people feel comfortable sharing in. Is there any shift in story between 2023 and 2024, or are we keeping the same message? I think, you know, frankly, my observation, the growth that we are anticipating is coming sooner, not later. So if anything, I feel a greater sense of urgency to get that that message, a narrative out. I'm about to get on a plane here in a couple of days and I'm going out to the west Coast. A number of folks I know the county executive is going to be out there. Some of our partners from New York State, our colleague North Plains, can be joining me. And we're going out to a major industry symposium for the Semiconductor industry. We went last year. It was a great, great opportunity to interact with all of the major semiconductor companies and supply chain partners from all over the world. Not only will we learn a lot about the state of the semiconductor industry that can help us be smart about how to support Micron and their investment here in this region, but we're going to use the opportunity to talk to a lot of their supply chain partners about locating here in central New York this growth that we have. We're now seeing coming. I think it is coming sooner than people want. I think the pace and the scale of development that I anticipate from Micron and from other companies in the microelectronics and semiconductor space, I think is going to happen more quickly. I think some of that has to do with global geopolitical conditions. I think we unfortunately are in a world that is filled with conflict. Conflict creates risk and uncertainty, and that risk and uncertainty leads US policymakers to say, you know what, we want to make sure that we have a fully functioning, you know, top of the line domestic semiconductor manufacturing industry here in the U.S. And it's the right move from a national security standpoint. So there, I think, is a lot of federal investment, a lot of federal attention going into accelerating the pace of development because of the uncertainty that's happening in the world around us. So my top line message is I think it is coming faster than people anticipate. That is both exciting and a little terrifying. But we don't really have a choice. We need to step up and figure out how to manage that growth and in the best way and translate that growth to positive economic and social outcomes for as many people in our community as we possibly can. It can feel really big. I mean, all of this conversation, it's very between geopolitical circumstances and macro and micro economic influences. It all is a lot to take in. So looking ahead to 2024, are there little moments that make you excited coming down the line, something that, you know, you have on your calendar or maybe that you just know is in the next few months? That is something that you're looking forward to and are excited about that is symbolic of the central New York journey. Yeah, I think the short answer is yes. I think there are a lot of them. One that is very near and dear to my heart. We anticipate that in 2024 we're going to complete construction on a fully renovated tech garden. That building that was that was first renovated from an abandoned parking garage into an incubator back in 2004 is getting a complete makeover. If you drive by down Harris's street right now, you'll see the building completely ripped apart. In the next week or two, we're going to start to see steel go up on the roof, and you're going to see this new structure start to take shape. That's incredibly exciting for me because it is something that is emblematic of the strategy that we set. The strategy being we need to start more companies than we lose in Central York if we want to win the economic future and the tech our new bodies. That spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation and to be able to make this what is going to be more than a $30 million investment in completely renovating that space and making it a state of the art incubator and accelerator is something that I'm incredibly proud of. We're actually, as an organization, we're very focused in 2024 on and making sure that when we reopen those doors, we do it in the most complete and comprehensive way we can. But that's something that I think 2024 is going to bring the opportunity to reopen that facility. And I'm I'm wildly exciting. I'm also pretty pretty jazzed about the opportunity that I anticipate in 2024 to travel across the ocean, most like in Asia, whether that's Singapore, Taiwan or other places, you know, in in Asia too, to talk directly with a number of supply chain companies. For Micron, we're in the early stages of starting to talk about what those kind of trade missions might be. Right? Something that we would partner with, with the county and with the state and and with Micron on. But, you know, that's a that's a really fun thing to be able to think about traveling across, you know, tens of thousands of miles, traveling across oceans and in meeting people that could be new partners of ours and having the chance to tell them the story of what's happening here, similar to what we did with Micron, I'll tell you that one of the most exciting things that I had an opportunity to do during the whole Micron recruiting process was just the chance to tell Micron who we were and what we've been trying to accomplish and where we think we're going. That was so much fun because this organization has been at the center of trying to craft that narrative for a long time. And so the chance to do that again with other partners that we hope to welcome from all over the world to Central York is something that I'm really looking forward to. Obviously, I love to travel. I love to I love different cultures. I love to see new places. But most importantly, I'd love to be an ambassador for this community. And and I'm really looking forward to that. Rob, thank you so much for joining us here today and for kicking off season two with a good outlook on 2024. Thank you, Carrie. Yeah. Anything else you want to add? great. Okay. I'm good with that. All right, Rock and roll. All righty. Clap. Anything we want to report. So grateful for your economic forecast Breakfast promo. you want to do it here? Do it on the phone. No, I mean, if we get stuff set up, we can do it. Yeah, It's easy recording, so we can just do it with Brittany's phone if you want to do it. But I guess we could do. Yeah. How ever you'd like to. If you want to sit right here and do it, you want to sit right here, you can square up in the center if you want to do it here, let me think. You two go here. Do you need any of that? On January 31st at 8 a.m. on center.