Governor Cuomo Congratulates Solar City Project on Receiving National Award

June 2, 2015 — New York State Gov­er­nor’s Press Office:

Lead­ing Nation­al Trade Pub­li­ca­tion Declares Buf­fa­lo Bil­lion-Fund­ed Project as 2014 Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Project of the Year

Gov­er­nor Andrew M. Cuo­mo today announced that Area Devel­op­ment, a nation­al trade pub­li­ca­tion cov­er­ing site selec­tion and facil­i­ty plan­ning, has select­ed the SolarCi­ty devel­op­ment project at River­Bend as the magazine’s 2014 Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Project of the Year in New York State. The pub­li­ca­tion also award­ed the State its Sil­ver Shov­el award for statewide devel­op­ment projects ini­ti­at­ed in 2014.

“This award for SolarCi­ty is anoth­er excit­ing exam­ple of how the state’s invest­ment at River­Bend is pay­ing off,” Gov­er­nor Cuo­mo said. “This project is trans­form­ing the region’s econ­o­my by cre­at­ing a more vibrant clean ener­gy sec­tor, and bring­ing thou­sands of new jobs in the process. As a key part of our Buf­fa­lo Bil­lion strat­e­gy, this project is all about cre­at­ing new oppor­tu­ni­ties for New York­ers in the region, and I am proud to see it earn this well-deserved distinction.”

Accord­ing to Area Devel­op­ment, Annu­al Shov­el Awards rec­og­nize state eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment agen­cies that dri­ve sig­nif­i­cant job cre­ation through inno­v­a­tive poli­cies, infra­struc­ture improve­ments, and pro­mo­tions that attract new employ­ers and invest­ments in expand­ed facilities.

Howard Zem­sky, Pres­i­dent & CEO of Empire State Devel­op­ment and Com­mis­sion­er of the New York State Depart­ment of Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment, said, “Momen­tum keeps build­ing on this amaz­ing project and an award such as this from Area Devel­op­ment is fur­ther indi­ca­tion that the game chang­ing qual­i­ty of this project, which we main­tained from the moment it was announced, is rec­og­nized from out­side nation­al experts. The devel­op­ment land­scape of Buf­fa­lo and West­ern New York has not looked this bright for gen­er­a­tions. Thanks to the com­mit­ment of Gov­er­nor Cuo­mo this project and many oth­ers are lit­er­al­ly trans­form­ing our region.”

SolarCi­ty CEO Lyn­don Rive said, “We are excit­ed for our new facil­i­ty in Buf­fa­lo, as the region has a decades old rela­tion­ship to the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor. By build­ing a strong rela­tion­ship with the local uni­ver­si­ties, includ­ing the SUNY Poly­tech­nic Insti­tute, we hope to lead man­u­fac­tur­ing resur­gence in this area with a skilled workforce.”

Dr. Alain Kaloyeros, Pres­i­dent and CEO of SUNY Poly­tech­nic Insti­tute said, “This high­ly dis­tin­guished recog­ni­tion for Gov­er­nor Andrew Cuo­mo’s trans­for­ma­tive River­Bend devel­op­ment from a pres­ti­gious pub­li­ca­tion speaks to the strate­gic plan­ning and exe­cu­tion of the project by the Gov­er­nor and his team, and the unprece­dent­ed job cre­ation it is bring­ing to West­ern New York. Under the Gov­er­nor’s lead­er­ship, River­Bend is mov­ing for­ward on-time and under bud­get. With SolarCi­ty, IBM and AMRI active­ly ramp­ing up their Buf­fa­lo oper­a­tions, the Gov­er­nor’s invest­ments have West­ern New York on the fast-track to long-term, inno­va­tion-dri­ven eco­nom­ic vital­i­ty and high-pay­ing job cre­ation and retention.”

Each of the 50 states was invit­ed by Area Devel­op­ment to sub­mit infor­ma­tion about its top-10 job cre­ation and invest­ment projects. Only those projects that began to mate­ri­al­ize in 2014 were con­sid­ered. The Shov­el Awards are giv­en to the states with the high­est weight­ed scores based on num­ber of high-val­ued added jobs per capi­ta, amount of invest­ment, num­ber of new facil­i­ties, and indus­try diversity.

This year, Sil­ver Shov­els are being award­ed to 16 oth­er states in five pop­u­la­tion cat­e­gories (Cal­i­for­nia, Flori­da, New York, and Penn­syl­va­nia (12+ mil­lion); Michi­gan, North Car­oli­na, Ohio (8+ to 12 mil­lion); Ari­zona, Indi­ana, Wis­con­sin (5+ to 8 mil­lion); Alaba­ma, Ken­tucky, Louisiana (3+ to 5 mil­lion pop­u­la­tion); Kansas, Mis­sis­sip­pi, and Utah (3 mil­lion or few­er pop­u­la­tion), and one project in each pop­u­la­tion group is rec­og­nized as a 2014 Project of the Year.

LPCiminel­li of Buf­fa­lo, NY is the con­struc­tion man­age­ment com­pa­ny over­see­ing the project.

A report on the 2015 Shov­el Award win­ners is pub­lished in the Q2/​2015 issue of Area Devel­op­ment and post­ed online at www​.aread​e​vel​op​ment​.com/​s​h​o​v​els.