Syracuse pharmaceutical company wins $3 million dollar grant, plans to add 77 jobs
The Central New York region was awarded $62.2 million for economic development projects during a presentation on Thursday afternoon. Now were are getting new details on where the money will go.
The biggest win for Central New York may have been a $3 million dollar grant for Steri-Pharma. The pharmaceutical company plans to add another production line and 77 jobs on Syracuse's near west side.
"They are investing in one of the most distressed census tracks in America from an economic standpoint and they are doing a really great job of outreach into the community," said Central New York Regional Economic Development Council co-chair Rob Simpson.
Simpson says Steri-Pharma is committed to hiring city residents as part of the expansion.
New York State also awarded $1.2 million to Le Moyne college for a "Quantitative Reasoning Center." Le Moyne president Linda LeMura says the center will be located int he campus library and will let local businesses and teachers from the Syracuse City School District work on reasoning skills, interpretive learning. LeMura says it will help develop the kinds of skills many modern jobs now require.
"We need to come together as a community and recognize the low tech, smokestack industries are gone," said LeMura. "We need to do all we can to invest in quantitative reasoning skills in addition to writing and the other disciplines in order to prepare the next generation for high tech, competitive, well paying jobs."
One of the other big winners was the OnCenter in downtown Syracuse. The state awarded it $975,000 for upgrades and improvements. General manager Kelly Carr says the money will go towards modernizing the 20 year-old convention center and make it more attractive to trade shows and events.
"You have to have WiFi like you had to have restrooms and drinking fountains. You have to have charging stations because everyone is mobile," said Carr.
