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Economic Development Strategy

Capitalize Albany, the economic development strategy for the City of Albany guides the development efforts throughout Albany with the goal of attracting  investment, creating jobs and providing transformational change. Since its inception in 1994, Capitalize Albany has been instrumental in bringing nearly 300 development projects, totaling more than $6 Billion in new investment. Nearly $1 Billion more in economic and community development projects stand ready to move forward in the next two years.                                                         

This aggressive and innovative plan has prepared New York’s Capital City for a successful future. From increasing employment downtown, to reconnecting the City’s stunning waterfront and renovating the historic Palace Theatre, to setting the stage for the growth at Albany NanoTech, the recommendations inspired from this strategy have assisted with important transformational projects in the City of Albany. This strategy was first released in 1996, and has been updated in 2001 and 2007 to respond to local and national changes in the economy.

The most recent updates to the economic development strategy focused on development, neighborhood revitalization, and education. The committees have recognized that quality-of-life issues play a significant role in attracting high-tech industries and workers. In addition to prioritizing transformational development projects, the committees have worked to understand how to improve those quality-of-life issues that are vital to attracting the skilled, creative workforce needed to sustain the next level of revitalization. The focus still remains on leveraging local institutions of higher education, fostering high-tech business development and creating a more diversified downtown.

The mission of the Development Committee was to:

• Recommend actions and programs to effectively continue Albany’s revitalization
• Identify and support projects key to the next phase of the city’s revitalization
• Identify resources necessary to advance transformational projects

The Development Committee made a number of recommendations. Top recommendations include:

• Establishing a Development Authority to undertake large-scale, strategic development projects in Albany
• Developing and launching a comprehensive, world-class branding, marketing and advertising campaign to best promote the City of Albany and all its amenities
• Creating a Strategic Projects Loan Fund through Private and Public Partnerships to assist priority development projects move forward

The mission of the Neighborhood Revitalization Committee was to:

• Identify the critical issues, assets and challenges related to Albany's neighborhoods, and develop recommendations for programs, initiatives and partnerships that respond to these critical factors
• Develop programming to make Albany's neighborhoods regionally competitive in the housing market in terms of value, safety and quality of life

The Neighborhood Revitalization Committee made a number of recommendations.  Top recommendations include:

• Establishing a land banking program
• Support existing efforts to create a Strategic Properties Acquisition Fund
• Target City resources to correct systemic blighting influences found within the City's economically distressed neighborhoods

The mission of the Education Committee was to:

• Identify the role that the business community can play in improving the quality and perception of education in the City
• Examine the role that public education plays in attracting businesses, investors and others to the City, and to explore how the business community can advocate for improvements to public education

The Education Committee made a number of recommendations.  Top recommendations include:

• Creating a permanent mechanism for business and education leaders to address education issues
• Encourage more direct partnership programs between Capital Region institutions of higher education and publicly funded schools in the City of Albany, with a special emphasis on the elementary school level, on schools in need of improvement, and the lowest performing K-12 schools
• Further develop and extend to all publicly funded schools an incentive-based student performance system

As progress continues to be made and work is aggressively being completed to reach these goals, Albany will continue to see many more transformations that can all be attributed to the vision that has come from Capitalize Albany.