About two months into commencing operations in an elegantly repurposed 100,000-square-foot ex-IBM space, the lighting firm RBW finally held a ribbon-cutting on this rainy Tuesday morning. The multi-million-dollar manufacturing facility paying New York City wages will be headquarters for about 70 employees.
After a profusion of short speeches, state lieutenant governor Antonio Delgado and RBW managing partner Charles Brill, backed by a wide row of distinguished local official personages, used a ceremonial pair of giant scissors to cut a bright ribbon. Cameras clicked. There was a round of applause.
About 75 people were in attendance at the event. Of the 40 seats available in front of the microphoned podium in four neat rows of ten people each with a central aisle, 23, each marked with the insignia of Empire State Development, had been reserved for the assembled officialdom.
Brill mentioned the 300-square-foot basement space on the Lower East Side where he and his partners, Theo Richardson and Alex Williams,, had started the business. The dream, he said, was for the firm to be a maker of lighting. That dream has expanded, he said. Now the goal is to be “a force of good.”
RBW is registered as a public benefit corporation, an unusual form which requires it to give back to the community in various ways.
The pandemic caused RBW to decide to do manufacturing and assembly outside New York City. Shown various spaces by local broker Joe Deegan and encouraged by architect Scott Dutton, the company chose the building at 575 Boice’s Lane next door to iPark87 in the Town of Ulster.
The officials at the podium assured RBW it had made the right choice.
The data now shows that relatively few firms made the kind of decision that RBW made. Most firms leaving New York City in the last few years have chosen industrial locations closer to the Big Apple – Stamford and Norwalk in Connecticut, Westchester County in New York, and northern New Jersey.
As we see the evolution of the impact of hybrid and remote changes in the labor force, however, it is hard to resist the conclusion that RBW was more forward-thinking in its locational choice than most.
It made the best choice.
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