NEW WINDSOR, N.Y. (November 15, 2018) – The Orange County Industrial Development Agency on Wednesday adopted an initial resolution for a public hearing regarding a Holiday Inn Express to replace the former Steak & Stein restaurant, located at 935 Union Avenue in New Windsor, N.Y.
Banta Hospitality, LLC seeks a sales and mortgage recording tax exemption as well as a 10-year PILOT from the Orange County IDA for a proposed 93-room, four-story Holiday Inn Express at the 2.8-acre site of the vacant Steak & Stein. The project would include the addition of a 13,797-square-foot building with an expected completion date of March 2020. If financial assistance from the IDA is granted, Banta Hospitality expects to create 24 full-time jobs, ranging from salaried to hourly positions with benefits. Additionally, the project is expected to provide approximately $400,000 per year in sales and occupancy taxes to Orange County.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Managing Director Vincent Cozzolino reported continued success for The Accelerator, a certified New York State incubator focused on bringing manufacturing back to the mid-Hudson Valley. The Accelerator, which currently comprises six buildings across three campuses in New Windsor, Middletown and the City of Newburgh, provides assistance to 24 companies.
Of the 24 companies, 41 percent are women- or minority-owned businesses. The Accelerator has helped these companies obtain a minority-owned business enterprise (MBE) or women-owned business enterprise (WBE) certification. By the end of 2018, the program expects to have created more than 100 jobs.
Cozzolino also announced a new initiative as part of The Accelerator program: Workplace for Emerging Businesses (WEB). WEB will provide shared meeting space for emerging businesses run by Generation Z entrepreneurs, or business owners between the ages of 14-23.
“Generation Z makes up 25 percent of the population, 55 percent say they’re more likely to start a business than millennials, and 72 percent of Generation Z high school students say they want to start a business,” said Cozzolino. “This group of people is native to technology; they grew up with an iPhone in their pocket. They’re extreme multitaskers; they like a lot of information and they have a lot of energy. This is a different generation and if we can capture them now, and keep them in the county, hopefully that can reduce youth flight.”
The Accelerator has identified four businesses to be the first tenants of the new WEB space, located the program’s Middletown campus. The businesses are: Hudson Valley Digital Solutions, a web development and social media company; Viking Hatchet Hurling, a hatchet hurling range; Retro Rebel, a community-based fashion lifestyle brand; and Deeply Rooted, a clothing company that fuses pop and African cultures.
Recently, The Accelerator hosted its second annual Hudson Valley Women’s Leadership Conference at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., an event for which more than 800 professionals in the region registered.
