After writing about how NYSEG's headquarters building seems to be in steady decline yesterday, I started thinking about how it's always been a strange island anyway. While it dominates the Route 13/366 intersection, it doesn't feel like it's actually contributed that much to the area's development.
I suspect the gas stations may benefit slightly as employees fuel up and buy snacks, and maybe Lockewood Interiors and HEP have sold kitchens to people who work there, but there's really not much spillover from there. There aren't local restaurants catering to a NYSEG crowd (though maybe the Plantation Inn still serves lunch). It doesn't have any of the kind of spillover effects that Corning Incorporated has on downtown Corning, for instance, though admittedly Corning occupies a much larger complex in a different setting and creates different kinds of effects.
NYSEG does seem to have been designed as an island, though. It seems at one point to have had a hefty private water system, described in the first resolution of this meeting, where we find:
WHEREAS, New York State Electric and Gas owns a facility on Lower Creek Road in the Town of Dryden, formerly used for treatment and pumping of water from Fall Creek to the Route 13 Headquarters, and
WHEREAS, NYSEG discontinued the facility's usage in 1989 and has since attempted to unsuccessfully to market the site, and
WHEREAS, the plant's creek intake piping and double tank storage system hold potential for use by local fire departments for tanker shuttle operations, and an inexhaustible water supply could be established at the site for use by all area departments, and...
I'm guessing they joined the Town water supply at some point, as they're shown as part of it. I also understand they have a company cafeteria, which may help explain the lack of surrounding restaurants. (It may explain to some extent the Fine Host facility down the road as well, of course.)
The Draft Comprehensive Plan talks about encouraging industry in the Route 13/366 intersection area, and also:
In addition to light industry, the areas proposed for future industrial development could also accommodate the development of office buildings that could house corporate administrative operations and service enterprises. Research and development enterprises such as computer software and equipment design businesses are another type of use in these areas.
Maybe this time around Dryden could encourage these things to develop in ways which aren't dependent on a single company, and in a more open style which would create more shared advantages that could encourage additional companies to locate here. Right now, it's hard to imagine how there's any kind of advantage to locating near NYSEG. It'd easier to imagine the advantages of locating in the same place if it had a group of active companies operating in a place where you can take visitors for lunch without driving for miles.
Posted by simon at December 17, 2003 1:18 PM in Route 13/366 , planning and zoning