When Onondaga County officials sent an application to Albany in October requesting inclusion of the former Rollway Bearings building into an existing Empire Zone, there were high hopes of landing an attractive new manufacturing facility that would employ up to 100 workers. Serious Materials, a California green construction company that produces environmentally friendly drywall and windows and depends on government incentives, is planning a fourth plant somewhere in the Northeast, according to company officials, and wants to locate in Clay. The county has not heard back.
According to a report in the Post Standard, the company's plans are now in limbo because of state inaction resulting from uncertainty about the Empire Zone program's future. In December Governor David A. Paterson proposed ending the existing program in 2011, and replacing it with what have been termed more cost-efficient incentives. His plan requires legislative action, and in the meantime other states are said to have incentives that might lure the new plant away.
"The average consumer thinks his car is the big carbon emitter," said Serious Materials President and CEO Kevin Surace in a Time magazine article describing the company, "but the built environment is the big kahuna," and is estimated to account for almost half of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Which is why Smart Growth proponents in New York are anxious to resolve Empire Zone reform soon.
(http://www.syracuse.com/poststandard/stories/index.ssf?/base/news-17/1232531890251360.xml&coll=1) carries the full Post Standard story.
