The Greene Boom

Business is picking up in Greene County

by Christina Kaminski, December 30, 2008

With the economy slipping and slumping into 2009, it’s tempting to pity our small-business-owning friends and colleagues. We might call them brave, inspiring, or even crazy. But the truth is this: Depending on where they are, they might be on to something. Greene County, which has long been considered a timeless and picturesque getaway for leaf-peepers and other weekend warriors, is also one of the fastest-growing counties in New York. This fact has not escaped notice by county’s legislators, nor has it eluded local business owners themselves. The Greene Business Partnership and the Greene County Planning and Economic Development Board have recently completed a comprehensive economic development plan designed to facilitate balanced economic growth in Greene County for the next 10 to 20 years. Some of the goals of the plan include the development of programs capable of assisting the growth of businesses in the county, enhancement of programs geared toward enhancing local quality of life, support of telecommunications and other business-oriented infrastructure, and identification of projects and programs that warrant federal, state, and local investments that would lead to better employment opportunities, especially for young people. In short, Greene County has adopted a long-term plan designed to keep its towns and villages bustling, beautiful, and open for business.

The Greene County Planning and Economic Development Board offers a wide spectrum of loan and grant programs to help existing businesses succeed or spark new businesses in target areas. The Microenterprise Assistance Program (MAP) offers small business loans of up to $25,000, ideal for new entrepreneurs. Another low-interest loan offered by the board is the Quantum Fund, which is capable of providing business loans up to $400,000. Perhaps the most visible and wide-ranging of the Board’s offerings to Greene businesses is the award-winning Main Street Revitalization Program, which has awarded about $660,000 in matching grants to some 130 projects over the past four years, in addition to leveraging roughly $400,000 in state money and $3.5 million in private funds. Overall, every dollar spent by the county has seen a six-dollar return of private or public funds invested—and, no matter what the economy looks like, that’s good business.

Although the numbers speak well for progress, it’s much more exciting to see what these investments really look like on the streets of Cairo, Catskill, or Coxsackie. With the assistance of loans from the Quantum Fund and the Bank of Greene County, gourmet chef and specialty market supplier Wolfgang Brandl was able to move his business from a cramped 2,500-square-foot location in Saugerties to a 6,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art, purpose-built bakery that had long been vacant in the town of Catskill. Brandl’s new digs have sophisticated draining and cooling systems, an elaborate exhaust system to handle the half-ton of onions caramelized at the facility each day, new machines for pumping the sauces and salsas directly from processing to the packaging machines, and a variety of new rooms for processing different ingredients.