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Cuomo announces LED company will relocate to central NY, create 400 new jobs

Tom Magnarelli
/
WRVO News
Gov. Andrew Cuomo at the nanotechnology hub in East Syracuse.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo came to central New York yesterday and announced that a company that produces LED lighting products and technology will relocate its global manufacturing and research operations from California to East Syracuse. The move is expected to create about 400 new jobs.

Speaking from the nanotechnology hub in East Syracuse, Cuomo said currently, the competition to get businesses to relocate to other states is fierce.

To make upstate New York competitive, Cuomo touts the area’s high tech and clean energy companies such as SolarCity in Buffalo which manufactures solar panels and the photonics center in Rochester which develops technology for smart phones, laptops and lighting.

“If we didn’t have this energy around this cluster economy and the education component and the other businesses, we would not be having this level of success,” Cuomo said.

SORAA, the LED company coming to East Syracuse, is partnering with the SUNY Polytechnic Institute in Utica to  continue to innovate and develop new products.

“You want to be developing the LED technology that can be put together with the solar panels so you can go to a business and say we have the full clean energy system,” Cuomo said.

SORAA is also getting $90 million in state tax benefits and raising $1.3 billion in private investments to relocate. Construction has already started on the new facility which should be complete towards the end of 2016.

Tom Magnarelli is a reporter covering the central New York and Syracuse area. He joined WRVO as a freelance reporter in 2012 while a student at Syracuse University and was hired full time in 2015. He has reported extensively on politics, education, arts and culture and other issues around central New York.