Bassett To Shift 40 Jobs To Downtown Utica

By JIM KEVLIN • The Freeman’s Journal

Edition of Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014

Bassett Healthcare has located a five-story building in downtown Utica, and plans to move 40 “non-treatment” tech-support positions there from Cooperstown in the next year. That may expand to 125 over the next five years, according to Bassett’s spokesperson.

The 50,000-square-foot M&T Bank annex was part of a complex that includes the landmark “Gold Dome” building, but that’s not part of the real-estate Bassett obtained, according to spokesperson Karen Huxtable.

The decision on the building was announced in recent days and heralded by Utica Mayor Robert Palmieri, who said, “This is another exciting day for the City of Utica. Having reputable regional companies like Bassett wanting to grow and expand in Utica speaks volumes of how far the City of Utica has come over the past three years.”

“The mayor agreed to give us 125 parking spaces, which was important,” said Huxtable.

Huxtable said the mayor dedicated 125 parking spaces in the vicinity for use by Bassett employees.

If Palmieri was elated, Cooperstown Mayor Jeff Katz was pensive. “I would like Bassett to remain focused on Cooperstown,” he said. “The absence of Bassett would be a crushing blow to the village.”

“That’s ‘the game,’” he said of the news. “Any other place is going to welcome it. Some people in Cooperstown will say, ‘Fine, let them go.’ That’s not a good vision for the future.”

This is Bassett’s first foray into Utica, although it has a clinic in Clinton, which is also in Oneida County, and it had been negotiation an affiliation with Rome General Hospital, on the other side of the city, but the negotiations fell apart earlier this year.

According to the official announcement, Bassett had been looking at office space in Utica for the past year. Huxtable said six sites were considered before this one was chosen. A Utica location, she said, is as convenient as Cooperstown for many of Bassett’s employees who live in northern Otsego County and the Mohawk Valley.

The location will also allow Bassett to develop connections with SUNY/IT in Marcy and Utica College to help fill the healthcare system’s hiring needs, Huxtable said.

Bassett’s new president/CEO, Vance Brown, called the new location part of “an exciting partnership” with the City of Utica. “We’re very appreciative of the support of Mayor Palmieri and his team.”