♦ Long Island was named one of the four “Best Plan Awardees” by New York state, receiving in excess of $101 million in state funding.
The other regions receiving best plan status were Western New York, which received $100.3 million; Central New York, which received $103.7 million and the North Country, which received $103.2 million.
Funding for other regions in the state were as follows:
- The Southern Tier – $49.4 million
- The Finger Lakes – $68.8 million
- MoHawk Valley – $60.2 million
- The Capital Region – $62.7 million
- The Mid-Hudson Region – $67 million
- New York City – 66.2 million
Overall, 720 projects received a total of $785.5 million from the state.
Long Island Association President Kevin Law and Hofstra University President Stuart Rabinowitz co-chaired the Long Island Regional Economic Development Council, which comprised a total of 39 local business, government and education officials.
Law and Rabinowitz presented the Long Island strategic plan last month before a five-member committee charged with selecting the winning plans.
Developments included in the list of transformative projects, that were vying for a slice of the $200 million of the state’s nearly $1 billion in economic development funds, included the Wyandanch Rising project in Babylon, the Hempstead Village Renaissance project, the Ronkonkoma Hub redevelopment, the Heartland Town Square project, the creation of an EPCAL AgriPark in Calverton and a large-scale bay scallop restoration project.
Other transformative proposals included in the plan include a major expansion of Hauppauge-based Amneal Pharmaceuticals, matching venture capital seed funding already secured through the Accelerate Long Island initiative for commercializing local research, establishing a collaboration between Stony Brook University and Brookhaven National Laboratory to set up a national center for energy research, development and manufacturing, creating a downtown transit hub in Hicksville with affordable housing, offices, labs, recreation and commercialization services under one roof for fledgling high-tech ventures, building a new cancer drug therapies testing lab at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a public-private partnership between Hofstra University and Stony Brook University to boost the number of engineering graduates – dubbed EngINE – and establishing a network of local agencies, higher education and research institutions, businesses and other not-for-profits that would increase the number of students interest in careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics-related industries.
In total, the council was seeking $38.5 million from New York state this year for all 13 transformative projects.
