Spotlight on Business: Can you please tell the readers more about Property Redevelopment Initiatives and projects happening in Lewis County like the Lyonsdale Property and the Lyon Falls Mill project? Brittany Davis: We are focused on site rede - velopments that promote mixed use operations and growth within our five key industries. Lyons - dale Property and the Lyons Falls Property both held what were once thriving businesses, in Southern Lewis County. Unfortunately, with the changing business climate, both the paper mill and biomass facility shut down. We were left with vacant properties – one of which has taken 10 years to demolish and clean-up. Through invest - ment and sound marketing, we are able to put these properties back into productive use. With both properties, we have seen growth through entrepreneurship, not necessarily a large devel - oper or company. This goes to show that Lewis County is very business friendly for the “ground up” operations – we are willing to take on a chal - lenge if the entrepreneur is! Cheyenne Steria: We currently have an RFP in process for Lyonsdale Property, and we think we have a path forward for a much-needed USDA certified meat processing facility to be located there. It is next to impossible to find meat in the supermarket, from the State of New York, espe - cially chicken. So, this is a priority industry to get going. We are excited about their product and development plan and they’re ready to sign an agreement with the county and have the property turned over to them so they can have the facility opened by next spring and scale up from there. The Lyons Falls Property has seen the Lewis County Development Corporation work tireless - ly, getting grants and working with contractors over the last 10 years to get what was formerly paper mills blight, demolished, environmentally cleaned up. We have recently completed a little bit of landscaping and beautification and are getting ready to start to market that property. In saying that we do have a creamery operating out of the one existing building on our property, processing all sorts of dairy related products from locally sourced milk. So, there’s definite -
mynny.biz platform that is helping local small businesses get their business online. Jenna Kraeger: The idea for Lewis County’s mynny.biz platform was an idea before the pandemic even started, but the need for it by small businesses was exacerbated by the pandemic. A lot of our small businesses rely on foot traffic and word of mouth marketing. So, this was kind of the push to say you need to diver - sify your marketing message and we are here to help. Naturally Lewis, partnered with a local business, Coughlin, who offers printing and web design services. They decided that they could create a new website platform specific to small businesses. That would be a low-cost alternative, with local support, and beautiful web pages that are simple and easy to use. So, we are offering an incentive to small businesses for the first year to sign on to the platform, to show them that the benefit was there to get online. As of July 2021, we had a full year in since the program was launched. Since the launch we have had 18 local businesses set up on the platform. And we have a long list of businesses to still reach out to for the platform. But we really see it as a huge benefit. The packages available are from one-page websites all the way up to a full ecom - merce shop for businesses, which really gives them the opportunities to explain the reach of their business, products, and services with a website at a very low-cost. If you look at other website builders that are out there, there’s not really a comparison because of the local support that these businesses receive with such afford - able options to help them grow their businesses.
“Lewis County is very business friendly for the “ground up” operations – we are willing to take on a challenge if the entrepreneur is!” ly some local foods, synergies happening in the area and it would be great to see that continue. Spotlight on Business: What are some of the challenges that you have faced in promoting Lewis County? Brittany Davis: I see challenges as the oppor - tunities in promoting Lewis County. We may be further away from large highways and interstates, airports, and rail, but in our eyes, those are also opportunities. Post pandemic, we can leverage our wide-open spaces, fresh country air, housing stock with large yards, recreational opportunities in the most rural part of NY, availability of land for business development, as assets in Lewis County. Jenna Kraeger: It is true that we do not have all the assets that a big city has. But that’s also what makes Lewis County unique. We aren’t trying to be somebody or something that we’re not. We have wide open spaces, we have outdoor recre - ation, we have the tight knit community, you’re not going to find in other places. And what some might view as a negative, we really view as a positive. And it might sound cliche, but we are in the middle of everywhere we have just about anywhere around us. In a one-to-two-hour drive, you can get to pretty much any scenery: major cities, mountains, lakes, and rivers. So, we are uniquely positioned to promote ourselves in that way. And with the pandemic, I think we can view ourselves as a great place for remote work. Offering an amazing work life balance, giving lots of opportunities to shift a negative into a positive. Spotlight on Business: How has Covid-19 affected your ability to promote Lewis County? Business had to pivot to online during the pandemic so, tell us about Lewis County’s
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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2021 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2021
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