Campuses are putting all the final pieces in place to attract businesses.

Across central New York, campuses of State University of New York (SUNY) are finalising their plans to attract businesses under governor Andrew Cuomo’s Start-Up NY initiative. Already more than a dozen colleges and universities have joined the economic development programme.

Onondaga Community College will be offering 72 acres of vacant land for businesses ranging from agriculture business and food processing to advanced manufacturing and tourism. Meanwhile, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and SUNY Upstate Medical University are still working on their respective proposals. Other regional colleges that have been approved for Start-Up NY include Cornell University, Binghamton University, SUNY Oswego and SUNY Potsdam.

The initiative was announced in autumn 2013 by governor Cuomo. As part of Start-Up NY, companies must open their offices within a mile of a campus and support the school’s academic mission and be beneficial to faculty and students. They also need to create jobs. In turn, businesses are allowed to operate tax-free for ten years. Start-Up NY’s aim is to get businesses to relocate, start up or expand in New York state through affiliation with public and private universities and colleges.

David Duggan, dean of the College of Medicine at SUNY Upstate Medical University, said: “We’ve had interest expressed by several companies already.  And we’re just kind of cueing them up, waiting for a plan to be approved, and then we’ll move ahead with them. We are inviting companies that have an overlap with our biomedical space, if you will. So the idea is to identify companies with a mutual benefit. They will get the benefit of a tax-free zone; we will achieve the benefit of having a commercial partner to help with education, to help with collaborative research, things of that nature.”