Jody Zakrevsky, Executive Director of the Amsterdam Industrial Development Agency, presented a report at Wednesday’s Common Council meeting summarizing the agency’s progress over the past year and also revealed a new gas turbine cluster project that is currently under development.
Completing the agency’s five-year strategic plan was one of the accomplishments reported by Zakrevsky.
“This document was actually started about a year ago. The mayor had requested that the agency have goals and policies and a strategic plan…we’ll be revising this over the next couple months,” said Zakrevsky. He added that the strategic plan, AIDA meeting minutes and other documents can be downloaded at the agency’s web page.
The strategic plan lists five overall goals for the agency, with specific strategies to reach those goals:
- to create new employment opportunities in the City of Amsterdam;
- to retain existing employment opportunities;
- to increase the City’s tax base;
- to diversify the City’s economic base; and
- to improve the quality of life in City of Amsterdam
Zakrevsky gave a positive outlook on AIDA’s finances even though they had to dip into their fund balance by approximately $240,000 in order to complete renovations to 44-46 East Main Street this year. However, the agency expects to receive $225,000 in reimbursement for the project from the NY Empire State Development program.
According to the agency’s yearly report, new rental income from the Main St. property as well as recently renegotiated leases with other tenants, that “it is projected for the first time in over a decade that the Agency will be able to meet its operating budget without depleting any more of the Agency’s fund balance.”
The yearly report lists five units in the Main St. building that are currently generating income, including a bakery, two units rented by Ronco Construction, and two residential units. The rental income from the building totals $3800 per month. According to the report, total monthly income from all AIDA owned properties is $16,926 per month.
According to the report, AIDA is responsible for a total of 293 jobs in the city.
Zakrevsky said that AIDA is working with AGT Services, a tenant of the city’s industrial park that services turbine generators, as well as other similar companies such as Power Generation and Composite Engineering (PCT) of Amsterdam and Rayco of Schenectady to develop a gas turbine development cluster. Zakrevsky said that AGT is looking to invest 10-15 million dollars in new equipment that could also be used by other businesses.
“If we are successful with working with them on having this new equipment installed, it will entice other companies from the east coast to come to Amsterdam and use their facility. It’s a facility we can use for more than just AGT. Right now I think there’s only about three of them in the United States, and none on the east coast,” said Zakrevsky, “There’s going to be a huge investment in turbine industry and we want to be able to be in a position to capitalize on it. So we’re making a big push on this development.”
