I remember the days when Ithaca had a whole lot more blue collar jobs. I guess the city is trending the way the country has been. At least there's some hi-tech and a ton of education/research to keep the local economy going.
Some info listed in the Ithaca Journal:
Tompkins County wages 2008, fourth quarter
* High-tech sectors average: $61,370
* Manufacturing sectors average: $49,750
* All sectors average: $41,700
Interesting article from the Ithaca Journal:
Business Campus growing jobs on South Hill
Local developer re-invents old factory for high-tech start-ups
By Krisy Gashler •
kgashler@gannett.com • Staff Writer • September 25, 2009
In 2004, the Axiohm factory on South Hill was a fairly depressing place.
Years of outsourcing and job losses left the factory only 15 percent occupied, while environmental contamination beneath the building cost time and money, scaring away potential buyers.
Sound familiar?
The current outlook certainly looks bleak for Emerson Power Transmission, whose owners recently announced that they will close the iconic plant within a year. But at least according to one Tompkins County economic planner, those needing inspiration for the facility can just look up the road.
The National Cash Register factory was built in 1957, producing cash registers and adding machines on a site just across Route 96B from Ithaca College, and south of what is now Emerson.
"I mean, originally NCR was all about manufacturing everything. They made their own screws," said long-time South Hill Business Campus Property Manager Linda Luciano. "Steel bar stock came in and it went out as a finished unit."
By the mid-1990s, the building had been sold twice and Axiohm took over, by that time manufacturing receipt printers, such as the kinds used at ATMs and gas pumps, Luciano said. But like many U.S. manufacturers, NCR and then Axiohm slowly outsourced much of the factory's manufacturing overseas, and the South Hill work force declined.
By 2004, Axiohm had outsourced all of its manufacturing and wanted to sell. But the environmental contamination left from previous operations meant that not only would potential buyers have to bear the cleanup expense, they wouldn't be able to get a bank to loan them money on the property either.
That's when Ithaca developer Andy Sciarabba became involved -- "purely by accident," he said -- and agreed to buy the factory. Over the past several decades, Sciarabba has helped develop properties such as the five-story office building at 200 E. Buffalo St. and Center Ithaca on the Commons, as well as a dozen commercial and Collegetown properties.
Sciarabba and his investors agreed to put $6 million of their own money on the line.
"So if things went bust, we were all on the hook," he said.
Five years later, the Axiohm factory has been re-invented as the South Hill Business Campus. Once nearly empty, it's now 85 percent rented, and peopled by an assortment of manufacturers, architects, lawyers, high-tech start-ups, piano rebuilders, cabinet makers, radio DJs, and not-for-profit agencies.
The largest space Sciarabba leases is to Goodrich, a company that produces orientation systems that help pilots position their aircraft. The smallest space is a closet-sized room that somebody rents for storage.
The engineering and administration side of Axiohm -- now called TPG -- still rents space in the building. Therm, a company whose main manufacturing plant is on the other side of South Hill, rents expansion space in the building, as does Novomer, a research and development start-up that manufactures polymer from carbon dioxide. Another high-tech company, Primet, recently earned an $8 million federal grant to develop new lithium ion battery technology.
Sciarabba credits much of his success to the fact that there is little manufacturing capacity in Tompkins County, especially of the sort that allows small start-ups to rent only as many square feet as they want, in a custom-built space.
The president of Tompkins County's development agency points to South Hill Business Campus as a model that's working.
"The project, I think, has performed beyond expectations," said Michael Stamm, president of the not-for-profit Tompkins County Area Development (TCAD). "Novomer and Primet (are) perfect examples of where we think future good jobs will come from in Tompkins County -- companies that in some way or another are using technology, often from Cornell, and start here, stay here, grow here."
In the past, many good jobs in Tompkins County came from the kind of traditional manufacturing done at Emerson.
In 1962, manufacturing accounted for 36 percent of all private-sector jobs in the county, according to Martha Armstrong, director of economic development and planning at TCAD.
By 2008, manufacturing accounted for only 7 percent of private sector jobs, about 3,700 positions -- and that sector had already been outpaced by technology and high-tech service jobs, which accounted for almost 4,000 positions, according to Armstrong.
"I think our strategy has to change with how the economy has changed," Stamm said. "We've clearly seen major changes in the U.S. economy, and what is staying here, and what we've seen in Ithaca, is companies that utilize technology."
The nationwide loss of manufacturing jobs to outsourcing overseas is likely to continue, said Garrick Blalock, an associate professor of applied economics and management at Cornell. Blalock is an economist who studies the relationship between trade and productivity.
As overseas workers become better educated, infrastructure in developing countries improves, and information technology eases coordination with remote factories, more companies will decide to move manufacturing abroad, he said.
The companies and jobs most likely to remain local are those "that depend on highly educated labor, firms that have demanding infrastructure requirements, and firms for which activities associated with manufacturing, such as protecting intellectual property, are difficult overseas. A university technology spin-off, for example, fits all three criteria," Blalock said by email.
At South Hill Business Campus, Sciarabba is proud to point out that there are 280 employees in the building, with 80 more coming when Challenge Industries moves in early next year.
At 65 years old, Sciarabba considers himself "retired" because he no longer works at the financial services and accounting firm he helped found, though he still oversees his own seven employees at South Hill Business Campus and he has visions of expanding the factory by as early as 2012.
He also continues to plant trees in the nursery he started at his home 12 years ago.
"My wife says, 'You're not gonna be here when they're big enough.' I say, 'I'm gonna be here.' "