Universities and the local economy
Each year three billion dollars go into our economy just from RIT and the U of R. And both schools are investing about $500 million dollars into new buildings and businesses. They are the major economic drivers in this area.
So far none of those projects are coming specifically to downtown Rochester.
Mikael Totterman founded and runs iCardiac, a local company that analyses drug trials for heart medicine. The software he uses was developed by the U of R. “The company is entirely based on technology initially licensed from the University of Rochester.”
I-Cardiac is one of thirty local spin off businesses from the U of R. That's why the U of R and RIT were center stage downtown today called the power houses of local economic development.
University of Rochester President Joel Seligman said, “Indirectly we're responsible for about 31,000 jobs, about 30 spin off companies and over time. I’m looking forward to more spin off companies and that type of economic impact.”
RIT President William Destler said, “If you look at the U of R and RIT combined, they contribute almost 3 billion a year to the Rochester area economy.”
But while RIT is building it's new college town in Henrietta and the U of R is developing across the river into the old 19th Ward. None of their new investment is directly into downtown. And experts say downtown is where universities can make their biggest economic impact. Heidi Zimmer-Meyer of the Downtown Dev. Corporation said, “In a perfect world we'd love it but right now what we're glad about is that these universities have become power houses in the regional economy.”
Including dozens of small businesses like iCardiac. Totterman said, “If it wasn't for the investment that the universities and the NIH was making in basic bio tech research 08 these kinds of companies would really not exist and the US would be a very different kind place from a bio tech and pharmaceutical perspective.” A report by the Brooking Institute says universities campuses are vital to downtown. They say it's happening in Syracuse, Buffalo and Schenectady. The report says it needs to start happening in Rochester.
By: Berkeley Brean
