Syracuse Technology Garden set to bloom

CNY Business Journal (1996+), Sep 24, 2004 by Rombel, Adam

SYRACUSE - By early November, the Syracuse Technology Garden should begin buzzing with the sounds of technology entrepreneurs moving in.

While the walls and floors at the 31,000-square-foot, technology-company incubator at 235 Harrison St. are still taking shape, the Greater Syracuse Chamber of Commerce, which will manage it has just taken a couple of key steps in determining the tenants that will occupy the incubator's 24,000 square feet of office space.

The Chamber, which has begun acceptmg applications for admission, formed an admissions committee to evaluate all applications for entrance to the Technology Garden and to issue formal invitations. The five-person committee is composed of

* Roger Trabucco, associate director of the New York State Center for Advanced Technology in Computer Applications and Software Engineering (CASE Center) at Syracuse University. The CASE Center and Syracuse Technology Garden have formed a partnership to share resources and expertise.

* Philip I. Frankel, an attorney at Bond Schoeneck & King. His practice has been devoted to business and corporate transactions with an emphasis on start-up companies, employment matters, contractual negotiations, and intellectualproperty concerns.

* Nasir Ali, vice president, new-venture development at the Greater Syracuse Chamber of Commerce. Ali will oversee the Syracuse Technology Garden for the Chamber.

* Kathleen Rapp, Onondaga County legislator (R-5th District) and chair of its planning and economic-development committee. Rapp was instrumental in helping the idea for Syracuse Technology Garden get off the ground, Ali says.

* Robert Trachtenberg, president of the TDO (Central New York Technology Development Organization), a private, nonprofit corporation that works with technology and manufacturing companies to develop business strategies, implement technologies, and smooth the transition from startups to mature organizations.

Ali says the committee members are all volunteers who have supported the incubator project over the years and will provide expertise in economic and business development and in entrepreneurship. "They provide the kind of insight we need as we go forward with this," he says. "It's a great team. [Among] them, we have moved to put the [admission] guidelines and criteria in place. So we're ready to roll."

Ali and his colleagues on the committee have devised a set of draft admission and graduation guidelines.

Requirements

All applicants will be required to provide a written business plan, have a business organization (not an individual), and offer a high-tech product or service that can be commercialized.

The admissions committee, in reviewing each application, will seek answers to a number of questions, including the following:

* Is the applicant a potential "Net Wealth Generator"?

* Is there the opportunity for significant annual-revenue growth and job creation?

* Is there a market for the applicant's product or service beyond Central New York?

* Have the company principals made a personal investment in their business beyond just "sweat equity"?

* Does the startup company plan to stay in the CNY region?

* Have the owners of the company passed credit and reference checks?

* Can the firm benefit from being in the Technology Garden, and will it be willing to meet regularly with Garden management?

* Will the applicant's on-site operations be environmentally sound?

Ali expects the committee to make the first official invitations in the next few weeks. He says that "dozens of companies" have inquired about becoming tenants at the Technology Garden. The lease price at the incubator will be about $12 to $12.50 per square foot per year, according to Ali, adding that there will also be some other "small," additional service charges that haven't been finalized yet.

The City of Syracuse owns the building but leases it to the Chamber for $1 a year. There is no mortgage on the building.

There are five firms which have emerged as "strong prospects," and the committee is awaiting their official applications. Ali declined to name the companies.

One entity that will definitely become a tenant of the Technology Garden, according to Ali, is the Syracuse office of the Space Alliance Technology Outreach Program (SATOP), a NASA-funded organization that provides engineering assistance to help transfer US space-program technology to the private sector. SATOP's current five-person Syracuse office is at the Samuel Williams Business Center, another incubator that the Syracuse Chamber operates.

The goal of the Technology Garden is to help companies grow into significant businesses that can "graduate" or move out of the incubator. "The value of you coming here is not only that you'll get a first-class facility but also [that] people are eager to help you grow and graduate," says Ali.

Companies will be eligible for graduation if they achieve $2 million in annual revenue, employ 20 full-time employees, are bought by another company, conduct an initial public offering (IPO), or raise an investment round of $2 rnillion or more from venture capital or other investment sources, according to the admissions committee's draft guidelines.