SUNY Farmingdale recently celebrated the near completion of their new Broad Hollow Bioscience Park with a ribbon cutting ceremony. The bioscience park, a five-acre facility found right at the campus' main entrance on Route 110, is sponsored by both SUNY Farmingdale and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

Senator Charles Fuschillo, present at the event along with his senatorial colleagues Kemp Hannon, Dean Skelos and Carl Marcellino, presented the Biopark's Chairman John Cleary with a check for an $8 million New York State Senate grant they secured in cooperation with Long Island Senators Balboni and LaValle to support and increase the facility with a 13,000 square foot expansion. Fuschillo discussed how important it is to have another Long Island based technology incubator present to help spur the growth of the economy. He also discussed the various job opportunities this facility will provide in addition to the thousands it already has, even prior to its completion.

"Pharmaceutical research and development is a worldwide, $3 billion industry that has found a home here on Long Island, along the 110 corridor, one of the fastest growing regions of hi-tech research. The $8 million my colleagues and I secured from the Senate will allow a highly successful research and development company to serve as an anchor tenant and attract new startup companies to the Broad Hollow Bioscience Park. It will enable Long Island to hold on to talented young people and attract others to the region, linking us worldwide," said Fuschillo, member of the Senate economic development and small business committee.

SUNY Farmingdale Acting President Michael Vinciguerra, who is also the vice chairman on the park's board of directors, feels the park will help develop and advance academic and hi-tech industries on Long Island. He talked about how important it is to have a living, learning facility nearby and how students of the college as well as the staff will have great opportunities for internships and workshops. Internships will be available in manufacturing engineering technology, information sciences, medical laboratory technology and biology.

Since the presence of incubators has grown on its campus, in addition to adding more internships SUNY Farmingdale has also expanded its degree programs in biotechnology, production and information technology.

Students who want to work with the biotechnology industry in the future, where the average annual salary pays up to $70,000, will be able to find employment locally rather than searching for jobs off Long Island. Vinciguerra also stated how having this building on the campus brings SUNY Farmingdale back to its roots, as it started out as a living learning center where research was done.

Dr. James Watson, president of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, spoke of how significant it is that this park is opening in the year 2000. He explained that this new century will be flooded with biological and technological issues and how important it is this is all taking place in the new millennium.

OSI Pharmaceuticals, the bioscience park's first anchor tenant, will be leasing most of the building when they move in sometime next spring. A bioscience dot-com named Biosupply Inc., the park's first incubator tenant, is expecting to move in sometime this fall.

Talks and negotiations about the park began about two years ago when officials at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory asked SUNY Farmingdale if they would lease land to them. The funding was obtained a year later, with the help and support of Governor George Pataki and the Empire State Development Corporation. At that time, it was announced that the assembly and state had agreed to establish incubators in biotechnology and other emerging technologies on Long Island.

By setting up starting companies in incubators on Long Island, the goal is to ultimately keep them on Long Island, therefore boosting the economy. In the past, companies had migrated from Long Island because of the lack of appropriate research and developmental facilities. This new emergence of incubators with better developed technology should help stop companies from going elsewhere.

Senator Skelos said "young firms nurtured here at the Broad Hollow Bioscience Park will have access to a highly motivated and talented student population where they can benefit from each other as Long Island further establishes itself as a leader in a hi-tech future."

At the ribbon cutting ceremony, Senator Hannon, chairman of the Senate health committee said "the dual goals of job growth and educational opportunities are achieved at the Broad Hollow Biotech Park. Marrying the talents and energies of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory with the facilities and resources of SUNY Farmingdale will result in specific benefits to Long Islanders and also to all of society. The men and women directing the lab, SUNY Farmingdale, and the SUNY Construction Fund deserve thanks for steering this unique project to successful completion of the first stage of an endeavor which has the potential of meeting even greater challenges."