Mohawk Valley Commission OKs Oneonta Projects

The $11 million Upper Susquehanna Regional Ag Center.

CADE’s related $200,000 Agricultural Microenterprise Program.

The IDA’s Susquehanna Regional Center for Jobs on the fifth floor of 189 Main, a collaboration with SUNY Oneonta and Hartwick College.

The Big Three of the City of Oneonta’s projects seeking state economic-development funding in a round Governor Cuomo is expected to announce in September have received approval at the regional level.

The Mohawk Valley Regional Economic Development Commission Wednesday, Aug. 13, announced the list of projects it is endorsing, and those three were among nine major ones being supported for Otsego County.

“We’re very encouraged,” said Sandy Mathes, IDA president.

He said projects are scored, and the MVREDC endorsement is worth 80 percent of the score. The list is then sent to Albany, where the executive branch applies the final 20 percent.

Elsewhere in the county, a 100-area commerce park south of Richfield Springs, a strategic planning process for Cooperstown, the William F. Streck Community Clinic at Pathfinder Village and a robotics curriculum at Edmeston Central School were among the projects endorsed.

While the final two were not IDA projects, Mathes said his board is supportive of all the county endeavors.

The three Oneonta applications aim to help the city help develop a “hub” for value-added agricultural products aimed at serving the New York City market.