Downtown Ithaca Incubator: A Plan to Get Startups to Stay
Downtown Ithaca Incubator: A Plan to Get Startups to Stay
Tompkins County and Ithaca are an economic bright spot in upstate New York,” said Cornell University President David Skorton at the opening of the Downtown Ithaca Incubator site on East State Street on Thursday, Jan. 16, “but we’ve been through some difficult times and some people are still struggling to get ahead. We have to grow our way out of an equilibrium that has left municipalities and families struggling.”
Cornell, Ithaca College and Tompkins-Cortland Community College have decided to work together to launch the business incubator project. Mary Opperman, the vice president at Cornell, said that the incubator was an attempt to encourage new companies to stay in Ithaca. A $1 million grant from the Empire State Development Corporation will help finance the renovation of the second floor. The incubator will also “graduate” new businesses into the state START UP New York program and serve as a “node” in the state-organized network of Innovation Hot Spots.