Building the Largest Entrepreneurship Hub in NY

As each month passes in 2025, CenterState CEO gets closer and closer to opening the new innovation hub in downtown Syracuse. If you pass the building on Harrison Street these days, you’ll see glass is now in the windows and exterior siding is going up. Inside, the elevators are now installed and crews are painting and renovating the new rooms. 

We know there are still a lot of questions about how the new innovation hub will fit into our community and when people will be able to get inside. And we still have a lot to share about this project—including new resources, new programs and a new name.

On this episode of Talk CNY presented by NBT Bank, CenterState CEO’s Vice President of Innovation and Entrepreneurship John Liddy stops by to discuss the latest progress and future goals of the Innovation Hub.

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Host: Katie Zilcosky LinkedIn

Transcript

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This is Talk CNY, a semi-monthly podcast by CenterState CEO. We're an independent nonprofit committed to creating inclusive, equitable, and sustainable economic growth in Central New York. Join us as we meet the people and explore the projects driving the regional economy forward. This is Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank. I'm Katie Zilcosky, director of communications at CenterState CEO, and your host for Talk CNY. As each month goes by in 2025, we get closer and closer to opening the doors on the new Innovation Hub in downtown Syracuse. Pass by the building on Harrison Street these days, and you'll see glass in the windows and the exterior siding going up. Inside the elevators are installed and crews are hard at work, painting and renovating all the new rooms. We know that the community cannot wait to get inside and take advantage of all the new resources and programming that will be available to them. And we here at CenterState CEO still have a lot of exciting news to share about this project, including a new name for the building. So joining me today on this episode of Talk CNY to discuss the current progress on the building and the future vision of the Innovation Hub is CenterState CEO's Vice President of Innovation and Entrepreneurship John Liddy. John, thank you so much for joining us here today back in the podcast studio. My pleasure, Katie. So as we get closer to opening up the new Innovation Hub, we have been inviting some of our close partners in for tours to see the space, see the progress. What are some of the reactions that people have when they enter this space from just watching it down the street to being inside and seeing what's going on? Holy Cow is a big one that I get. The interesting thing is some of the people that have seen it when we started the construction and the logarithmic success that we've had in the build out in the last month alone, there's been such significant delta in what it's. What they like about it is the different layout that we have on the second floor. They are really big fans of the multipurpose theater. Everyone comes in there and plans an event. They say, "Hey, I could do this. I could do this. I could do this." And interestingly, we have the third floor, which will be for future build out built to suit people. I've gotten a thousand ideas on how they would do that. And so people's imagination starts to run. And then they start to see themselves there. Whether it's a tenant, whether it's a client, whether it's someone that's in a program, and it comes down to, alright, is this a nice spot for a desk? How close is this to the bathroom? There's the game room over there. I like that. I like coworking. It's really individualized, but at the end of the day, everyone's in awe. I mean, that's great. They're so vividly picturing themselves there. They're just like, yeah, is the bathroom close enough for me? Maybe I'll take the office like two doors down. Something like that. And that was a critique of the Tech Garden in the past, is that people couldn't see themselves there. Whether that be in the types of companies that were there, the diversity of folks that we had within the building, and were really making a conscious effort to make sure everyone feels welcome. So are there recurring questions? I mean obviously,"Is the space taken" Is probably a big one. But are questions about programming about the building itself that when you're on these tours, people keep bringing up over and over. They're astounded by furniture comes in this, this is fantastic, that's great. That's one of them Two, it's what are the other resources that come to bear? It's not just, Hey, I have an office or a cubicle. What are the programs? What are the business advisors? What are the access to the investment manager? And they're really astounded by that. The other thing that they really queue in on, it's the fact that there's going to be so many other entrepreneurs in the building. The goal is to make sure that we have an active facility and that there are a lot of folks that are interacting, collaborating, colliding, and we're going to do that. We're going to try and make that happen with events. And we have a whole plan on the number of events we have every year to make sure that that happens. And so they like seeing the fact that there's other people like them that are going to be in the building. So we've been sharing a lot of this progress, not only with people in tours, but also online on our social media channels. And it always gets a great big reaction and including questions from our online community as well. So I want to go through a few of those questions online, we'll answer them here today. So one of them that we've gotten recently is how do you envision this building impacting the Central New York entrepreneurship years? Wow. So what I'll say is historically at the facility we worked really in the validation space. That is, I have an idea and I'm trying to figure out if there's a product market fit. We still do that. We have a lot of accelerator programs that work in cohorts, but we're also expanding that and we're working with people at the ideation and formation stage. Whether hey, design thinking, is there something that a problem I can solve? And then on the flip side of that, on the growth side, alright, I got product, I have product market fit. Can I get access to capital? Will I have access to customers? And so we redesigned our staff to make sure that we had that capability. And what that allows us to do is take on more founders at different levels. We're really happy that we can do that. Yeah. Next one is, will there be resources, funding for startups and investors in the new space? Everyone asks about money? Yes, always. That's a clear thing. Several of our programs have funding components to them. Not all of them. Some of them do. Plus we recognize that access to capital is a really important thing. We are investigating a fund of our own. TBD - Q4, Q-25, Q2, Q1, 26, and we will have venture capitalists in the building. We will most likely have them in residence in an actual office, but we already have programming planned to bring them in on a regular basis because that access to capital is an important part. The other side of that is it's not always investment capital. It could be debt capital, and we have some plans in place to make sure that lenders are also in the building. Well, that'll be very exciting coming up. Last one, kind of touching on something you mentioned in the first question, coworking space and event spaces. Who are those open to, and how can you use them? Sure. We have a tiered clientship, and depending on what your needs are, it'll also depend on where you are on your journey and what your requirements are. And we have everything from a virtual client where they just come in when they need and have access to a cubicle, to a desk. We have some one-day rentals for actual offices. And then depending on the layer of your clientship, you can have access to conference rooms. We have the large event space, and we have the event space, not just the theater, but we'll have the outside terrace that has 5,000 square feet. We have our existing Northland classroom on the first floor that can hold 50 people. So we have a lot of amenities for all the people that come in. So this building really is amazing. I had the chance to actually go inside of it not too many weeks ago, and it is, you can really start to see exactly what this is going to look like and imagine how this is going to impact the community. Still a lot of work to do though. You're still walking in a constructive site. I had a hard hat on. So what are they currently working on construction-wise now, and what's next on the to-do list? Sure. Right now they're finalizing the second floor. There are 17 different trades that are there. And so there are a lot of people. A lot of different boom boxes with a lot of different music. And so painting will be done on the second floor by the end of next week. And we're laying carpet right now. We're putting all the molding on. All the lighting will be in by the end of next week. And so a lot of that finish. And then we'll come down to the first floor. The first floor will be largely the same except for the Maker Space in the entrance area, but we have to repaint things and get that all carpeted up. We're in good shape on the building. The one holdup we have is the electrical vault. We used to get our power through the Equitable towers. Now we have our own electrical switch and that's going in in the back. And if you see that big, huge hole in the ground, that's what that's for. Well, that's good to know then. I know you're not just digging parking underneath something like that. It's for the electric. One of the things we've yet to reveal that I know you have played a big role in is the new name for the building. I'm really excited about it. We will be revealing it at our upcoming annual meeting on April 23rd. So without giving anything away, can you tell me a little bit about why you think the name's a good fit and why change the name in the first place? Sure. The new name is... If you take a look at what, we started the Tech Garden and it was created by a bunch of companies that wanted to sprinkle opportunities throughout downtown, starting in that incubator space with a tech orientation. A real intentional part of that was the fact that you could have real rapid development. And so we did that and we had some really nice success there, but it's time to turn the page. As I mentioned, organizationally, we've switched the skill sets that we have internally. And so we can support not just tech-based rapid growth companies. We can support your main street businesses or your high growth.We have an opportunity to really address our community. One of the things that we haven't leveraged enough in as CEO. And so we have thousands of members. Let's figure out how we can help them on the intrapreneurship side. If you take a look at Amazon, how does Amazon make their money? They sell things. The second most profitable thing is their server business. So AWS, right. But that was a function that they needed to actually work their own business. So we're leveraging the functions we needed to run our facility, and now we're going to be able to deploy that into the community. Since we have such a breadth of opportunity in the community, it's a really inspiring way to go. Well, we will have more in just a few moments here, but first, a quick word from our presenting 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 in 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. This is Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank. I'm Katie Zilcosky, director of communications at CenterState CEO, and your host for Talk CNY. I'm here today with CenterState CEO's Vice President of Innovation and Entrepreneurship John Liddy. John, thanks for being here. My pleasure, Katie. So we talked little bit about the physical changes that are happening in the building, and there are sure, a lot of them, 46,000 additional square feet is a lot of new space to play with. Sure. But programming is also changing and expanding in this building, which we talked a little bit about before the break, but I want to get into one of the pieces that we're adding in this space, which is a multitude of in-residence programs that we had our chief revenue officer in residence have an event just recently, so we're already getting started on that even before the opening of the doors of the physical facility. Can you tell me a little bit about these in-residence positions, and why they are helpful and good to have in incubator spaces? Sure. We actually have two different, we have a C-suite fractional, which is what Sarah was the chief revenue officer. That is for companies that have achieved product market fit and their company is growing, but they don't have all the skill sets internally. And so I can't afford to have a chief revenue officer or a chief financial officer, and I might not have the education or the background in business to understand what it is I need. And so instead of going out and getting a full-time one, we'll employ those people for those people that are in the growth stage. We had this other role, which we will be breaking out in the fall called an EIR, an entrepreneur in residence. And those are for founders that have been there and done that. And so that's a bit of a holistic approach to, I'm going to guide you as a founder because I've been payroll. I've tried to figure out product fit. I've understood what asking customers for things are, and so that EIR and both of those are models that have been very effective in other locations. We've had the EIR model here at the facility before the fractional officer role is one that we heard from founders that had exited. Some folks that had gotten out of the building, perhaps had some downtown space perhaps even sold their company, and recognized if I only had this skillset that could assist me in my growth trajectory, I would've been successful that much more faster. And we're piloting that CRO role right now. It has had phenomenal response, and so we're really excited about it. Yeah, I was going to ask how you came up with having these positions in the new space. So it was a combination then of founder input and also seeing it as a successful model in other places. It was. And so frankly, we had to try to figure out which one we want to do first. And there are some fractional roles that lend themselves. We will have a fractional CFO company in the building, and so obviously we will lean on them for that side of it. Sarah just came to us, serendipitously had this fantastic experience in the startup space in Chicago and in the CRO space and has been a wonderful, she's been wonderful with our clients, and so a great add. And so we got lucky with that one. Yeah, that's great. So say I'm a founder in this space and I'm interested in accessing one of these folks that are in these positions. What does that look like for me? Can you walk me through the process of, do I just kind of walk up to the front desk and I'm like, take me to the Chief Revenue Officer in residence, or what's the process there? Yeah, it varies based on your clientship and what you have access to. The other thing is we will make those fractional C-Suite folks available to members as well on a pay-to-play basis as well. And so we'll have them available for the tenants and for the clients. And then the methodology is, frankly, it's being worked out now. That's why we're doing this pilot. All right. Is it I take a meeting? Is it that I do an intake, and I understand what their needs are? And then we have, all right, this is going to be 10 hours, going to be 20 hours, and then we have this, we just got to make sure we're threading the needle on, are they becoming a consultant for that company? Are they working for us? And so we're working through a couple of the logistics on that side. We're figuring it out. We'll get there. Yeah, we will. Another program that you guys are planning on instituting soon is a mentorship program. And so I know that that one's kind of rolling. You're recruiting right now, working that out. Tell me a little bit about it. How's it going to work? How do you envision it being in the space? Yeah, we're running a pilot with that program as well. And mentorship is one of these things. It's frequently done. I don't know that it's frequently done well, And not all mentors are created equal. And so there's a lot of people that volunteer. And then how is it that we hold people accountable? And holding people accountable is a big part of the work that we do. And so we have some processes in place to do that for founders. We have the same opportunity to do that with mentors. We've had some great folks raise their hand to assist, and so we're working with them as a first cut to figure out all right, how did that interaction go? One of the art parts of it versus the science part of it is how do you match a mentor with a founder? Yeah, I was going to say. It's like, do they get along? Are they in the same industry? Is it the same, Hey, I need help with some specific function. And so we've actually been going through software systems that have some matching algorithms with that. And there's two people on my staff that have some history doing mentorship programs. So we're leaning hard on them to do that. I know it's probably a little fun to be like, okay, you might not be the same industry, but you have a good personality match. You might be able to guide each other in the same stage of growth. I mean, are you seeing those kind of connections that maybe you wouldn't have thought of originally, but are being connected and working out? Yeah, so we did a meetup a little while ago and we had mentors and potential mentees, and we just didn't do anything. We just said see how they, and we kind of like, would I have matched that person with this individual? We were pretty good, but not always. Right? It's like all of a sudden. And so they jelled and we would not have seen that. It's still kind of TBD if that all works out. So we're trying to mix a little bit of, alright, the right feel and the right technique. Sure. How do you envision this in the space? We're in the pilot phase now, kind of working it out, but at its best capacity, what is this mentorship program doing? We anticipate having mentor meetups on a regular basis so that the mentors can come in and meet with themselves. And then we'll also have meetups with the potential mentees. And we'll do that probably on a monthly basis. And so we envision having mentors in the building every day. And if someone wants to be a mentor, how can they get involved in this process, get involved early and be there when the door open. They could shoot me an email or anyone on staff. So for the last part of our conversation here, I want to zoom out a little bit. We all know that the Innovation Hub is going to be really special for our community, the Syracuse, Central New York community, but in terms of other incubator spaces, other small business community programming, how special is it? Is it normal for a city like Syracuse to have a giant dedicated space to entrepreneurship and innovation? No, and it's the fourth largest in the United States by square feet. And the fact that we'll have opportunities to do acceleration for companies in the validation space, we'll be able to do main street businesses on ideation right up through growth that will be able to do intrapreneurship, that will have a venture studio. We'll have such a wide breadth of opportunities and going to be helping us with the mentors of the C-Suite and the EIRs. But I also think that's fairly reflective of CEO as a whole. I mean, we have a lot of different capabilities that we can bring that if you look in other communities, they don't have an organization like CenterState. Yeah, absolutely. And I was going to say, what does it say about our region? I mean not only our organization, but our whole region that we've invested in this space in folks who are starting businesses and people with ideas. How does that reflect on our region as we continue to grow and evolve? Very positively? Yeah, I. Would say, and I think if you take a look at the ethos of people that are from Upstate New York, Central New York, right across through a corridor, we reinvent ourselves and we've gone through some times with the Rust Belt and all that, and now we have the opportunity with Tech Hubs and with Micron coming in, we're reinventing ourselves one more time. And I think people in this area are resilient, and they recognize the value in innovation. They recognize the value in creation. So I think that's why we've really done all the work to support them. Well, John, thank you so much. I'm looking forward every day to seeing the new space completed and getting inside. I'm sure you are too. I am. Alright, we'll see you next time. Thank you. CenterState CEO's podcast Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank, is available on all major podcast platforms or CENTERSTATECEO.com. Additional content and clips can be seen across CenterState CEO's social media channels. For new episode reminders, be sure to subscribe in your favorite podcast listening app and don't forget to leave a quick review or five-star rating. Thanks for listening to Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank.