“Kaz and LB make long-range planning even more important,” Board of Supervisors Chairman Art Baer (R-Hillsdale) said at a meeting Wednesday night in Hudson. “We’ve been looking outside the box on how the county might create new revenues and more jobs and further reduce and minimize the real property tax burden.”

A presentation by consultants Thomas Steiner, Steven Runin, and Jock Spivy outlined five areas of development that county supervisors, local business and economic development leaders, and the consulting firm identified as the best opportunities for Columbia County in the future. Those areas were arts, entertainment, and tourism; senior living; sports and recreation; agriculture; and education. The presentation can be viewed on the Columbia County website.

Baer stressed that the presentation was not focusing on immediate needs but on long-term projects. “This is a work in process,” he said. “A lot of progress has been made.”

Since late February, the strategic planning group has been meeting twice a month to discuss potential areas of improvement, said Steiner. The questions they asked themselves: “How do we attract new business to this county and how do we define that business?”

To answer that question, Baldwin Bell Green looked at the neighboring Berkshire County in Massachusetts. “Is there really any difference in these two counties?” Steiner asked. “We looked at the private sector, non-farm sector, which is very important to economic growth. That’s the sector that changes economic well-being.”

In Columbia County, 25 percent of business is in the private sector, compared with Berkshire County where 45 percent of business is in the private sector. In order to meet Berkshire, Columbia County would need to increase private sector jobs by 11,000 to 12,000. “That would be wonderful,” Steiner said, but added that even if all the ideas they’ve been exploring happened, the potential job increase that would result was only approaching the 500 to 1,000 range. “The county can only be a facilitator, and it takes a long time.”

When attracting businesses to the county, Steiner said there are three things Columbia County is primarily interested in: Will the business buy products here? Will they create jobs? Will they use an existing structure to house a facility?

“The [economic] increase that occurs because of a new business is not one for one,” Steiner said, it branches out into other areas of the local market as a business uses goods and services existing already in the county.

Arts, Entertainment, and Tourism

“How do we get money here? How do we get people to come here?” said Steven Runin. “We looked first at the performance arts. One thing we saw was we lack the facilities. That’s something that takes a long time to establish.”

The group came up with one idea that could happen within the next few years—the Big Apple Circus. Some positive aspects of working with the Big Apple Circus are that it is self-contained—in other words, it takes care of itself; the circus has been in the area before; the circus would be interested in working with the county on a long-term, regular basis; and it has broad appeal. The Big Apple Circus is also a not-for-profit organization and does a lot of local media marketing.

“It’s one event around which other events occur,” Runin said. “They are willing to take a lot of risk. It would create some part-time jobs and additional tax revenues for the county.”

Supervisor William Hughes (D-Hudson) asked what the ticket prices were. Runin said it depended on sponsors, but he cited $40, saying that it was very likely that the prices would be lower and the circus seeks out sponsors before moving to an area.

Constraints for pursuing tourism dollars include a lack of hotel rooms in the county, the limited number of fully equipped performance spaces, competition from neighboring areas, and the need to book performers two to three years in advance.

Senior Living

“Columbia County has one-third more people over the age of 60 than [the] New York State [average],” said Jock Spivy, “and one-third less people under 24. The county is growing older, and there will be a need for programs, facilities, and businesses for the aging.”

The bigger senior-oriented operations would not come to Columbia County, Spivy said, because they tend to seek higher population density than the county provides. “But there is a growing group of people in the private sector specializing in healthy services in rural areas,” he said. Country Place Living, an assisted living franchisor headquartered in Texas, recently visited Columbia County to assess it as a possible location for a New York operation. Spivy said they were particularly interested in how supportive the local government and economic development agencies were in helping them.

There has also been a proposal by a Long Island firm interested in establishing a senior living campus in Niverville. “It would include independent living, assisted living, possibly a county nursing home,” Spivy explained. Such a campus would also provide on-the-job training opportunities for students in Columbia-Greene Community College’s popular nursing program, which currently faces shortages in clinical training positions. While nothing has been finalized, the Niverville project could start as early as next spring.

“This is a powerful engine,” Spivy said. “It’s an ongoing demand that is not going to go away.” He said there was the potential to keep an estimated $8 million of assisted living residents’ net worth within the county with such a campus, and $500,000 to $1 million potential savings to the county because of a reimbursement rate change and shared services. More important for local job seekers, the project could bring in 100 new full-time positions.

Sports and Recreation

The strategic planning group also focused on sports and recreation prospects for the county. Spivy noted that land is relatively inexpensive and the proximity to New York City, Boston, and Albany is attractive.

Skyhawks, one of the country’s largest sports day camp franchisors based in Spokane, Washington, plans to visit school superintendents in Columbia County next month to explore the possibility of starting up summer recreation programs and after-school activities.

But it was the proposed $10 million baseball camp to be located where Greenport borders Livingston that the group focused on. The brainchild of Burke S. John, the Hudson Park Summer Baseball Camp would include 16 major league fields and nine dormitories and would accommodate 1,100 children a week. “It could bring other things to the area,” Spivy noted, such as restaurants, a hotel, and small shops. “It’s estimated as a $15 million a year business,” Spivy said, adding that the camp could bring 50 full-time jobs and would provide opportunities for Columbia-Greene to collaborate on activities and with facilities.

Agriculture

Perhaps the most complicated economic development strategy introduced was the idea of agribusiness. According to Spivy, the group “embarked on a systematic analysis and set of recommended actions to close gaps in market structures between Columbia County producers and their markets and to identify potentially valuable new infrastructure.”

A foreign aquaculture firm has expressed interest in opening a U.S. base of operations in Columbia County, Spivy said. “They are looking to sell farm fresh fish to New York City,” he said. “They would invest $5 million and bring about 40 jobs to the area.”

Another agriculture-related possibility came from former New York Times food critic and current editor-in-chief of Gourmet Magazine, Ruth Reichl, who suggested that the county could benefit from a local foods festival. “She explained that local, high-quality, safe food was more on everybody’s mind,” Spivy said, citing the recent example of babies in Asia falling ill because of bad milk. “Ruth thought there was a big future in having a producer/farmer food festival.”

As an example of a successful agriculture event, Spivy noted the Hudson Valley Garlic Festival in Saugerties, which began in 1989. The brainchild of Pat Reppert, the event attracted 53,000 people last year, with an economic benefit to Ulster County of nearly $5 million.

There are two agriculture-based research studies in the works. The first focuses on new opportunities for agribusiness—for example, ways for farmers to transition to new markets and opportunities, necessary new infrastructure for Columbia County farmers, identifying and bridging “gaps” between farmers and their markets to help farmers get fair prices. The second study focuses on the use of biofuels.

Education

Two vocational schools took a look at Columbia County as a location for satellite schools, but one—the French Culinary Institute—decided locating here was too risky, and the other—the International Center of Photography—has put off making a decision. “Housing is crucial,” Spivy said, and Columbia County is sorely lacking in opportunities for student housing. “It’s difficult to attract students without it.”

In addition to vocational schools, the strategic planning group spent time studying the merits of attracting foreign students into the State University system. These students are growing in numbers and pay maximum fees--$15,000 a year—to attend state schools.

New York State has the second highest enrollment of foreign students in the country, boasting 55,000 students from abroad currently enrolled in institutions of higher learning. A possible partnership between Istanbul Aydin University in Turkey and Columbia-Greene Community College could bring more Turkish students to SUNY.

Branding and Marketing

In addition to the five main categories of economic growth the group studied, there was also discussion of how communications and branding are strategically important to support Columbia County’s economic development initiatives. Another presenter, Phil Foreman, who worked for many years in the marketing field, stressed the importance of getting the word out on what Columbia County has to offer.

“Take what you have and sell it,” he said. “While all these ideas are being built, our job is to tell the best story we can about our county and to make money for the county.” County residents, he said, are the key to successfully promoting the county. “People start out as visitors and when they get to know the area, they come back. We have our best prospects staying with us.”

Foreman said the county needs to get the word out on success stories like Golden Harvest’s new Harvest Spirits Distillery, producing Core vodka, and Richmor Aviation, one of the largest aviation schools in the Northeast.

“This county needs to get an edge,” Foreman added. “We need to attract people.”

Supervisor Doug McGivney (D-Kinderhook) pointed out how busy Golden Harvest is this time of year and said that getting the word out on the new distillery—the first to open in New York State since before Prohibition—would only increase that.

“Golden Harvest creates a lot of traffic this time of year,” he said. “It could be like that all the time.”