Release date: 1/18/2018
Earlier today Invest Buffalo Niagara and Greater Rochester Enterprise were notified that the Buffalo-Rochester Metro Corridor has not been selected to advance in Amazon’s second North American headquarters (HQ2) site location review.
While this news is certainly disappointing, we’re proud of the comprehensive proposal we put forth on behalf of Buffalo and Rochester. The joint collaboration between Buffalo and Rochester has been an inventive exercise in big picture, regional thinking focused on the attraction of new capital investment and jobs in Western New York. By linking efforts, the combined Buffalo-Rochester Metro Corridor offered a sophisticated, robust and compelling proposal that showcased the talents of our 2.2 million people and our extremely livable communities.
Our region boasts a number of key differentiators, including well-documented affordability, low operating costs, ease of travel—via bicycle, public transit, or automobile—extensive access to leisure/lifestyle activities, dynamic development site locations, an existing and evolving innovation ecosystem, 60+ colleges and universities, and a central location within the internationally significant U.S./Canada community. We also offer a highly-skilled talent pipeline, strong regional competency in radio-frequency identification (RFID), sustainable packaging, flight controls, drone technology, high-performance computing, software development, and data analytics, to ensure that companies located here remain competitive within the global economy.
Overall, this joint effort yielded much information regarding how our two communities can work together to promote our region to future suitors and top-tier talent throughout the world. And our organizations will continue to work toward attracting new companies to our region that are similar to many of those who already selected Upstate New York as their place to do business, including: Athenex, Cloudcheckr, Datto, ON Semiconductor, Sentient Science and Trove Predictive Data Analytics.
Thank you again to the many community and regional stakeholders who contributed to the compilation of our RFP response. We look positively ahead to the prospect of pursuing additional opportunities on behalf of the region.
-Matt Hurlbutt, President and CEO of Greater Rochester Enterprise
Tom Kucharski, President and CEO of Invest Buffalo Niagara
ABOUT INVEST BUFFALO NIAGARA
Invest Buffalo Niagara is the area’s leading private sector economic development and business attraction organization, focused on research, marketing, and business development outreach. With exceptional community connectivity, InBN’s staff provides comprehensive services and project management for companies looking to expand or relocate. From research all the way through ribbon cutting, InBN is the primary point of contact for economic development in the eight-county Buffalo Niagara region. Learn more at buffaloniagara.org.
ABOUT GREATER ROCHESTER ENTERPRISE
Greater Rochester Enterprise is an economic development organization committed to attracting new capital investments, creating regional wealth and new jobs throughout the Greater Rochester, NY region. As a trusted advisor, the GRE team of professionals will help you connect to the right people and find the right resources to expand your company here. We are the first call you should make if you want to grow your business. Learn more at rochesterbiz.com.
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