A terrific turnout at The Queensbury Hotel in downtown Glens Falls for the Albany Business Review’s Building Up the North Country breakfast, bringing together approximately 200 business, development, and community leaders to discuss the opportunities and challenges shaping our region’s economic future. EDC Warren County was proud to sponsor this important conversation.
One of the strongest themes emerging from the event’s discussion was the remarkable evolution of the North Country economy. While traditional legacy industries have contracted over time, a new generation of entrepreneurs, businesses, and private investors is creating fresh opportunities and renewed economic momentum.
In many ways, our challenge is no longer simply attracting investment. It’s ensuring our communities have the capacity to accommodate it.
Housing emerged as a particularly critical issue. Growing demand, rising development costs, lengthy approval processes, and regulatory uncertainty can discourage the very investments our communities need to support workforce attraction, business expansion, and long-term economic vitality.
Streamlining approvals, improving predictability, and reducing unnecessary costs and delays are essential to unlocking additional private investment while maintaining thoughtful community planning.
Projects like Bonacio Companies’ ongoing redevelopment of South Street in Glens Falls demonstrate the potential of reinvestment, adaptive reuse, and new housing to help reshape our communities.
These conversations reinforce EDC’s commitment to advancing a more diverse, resilient, and competitive regional economy through collaboration, strategic investment, and policies that encourage responsible growth.
The opportunities are significant. Our ability to capitalize on them will depend on how effectively we address the barriers to growth.
Thank you to the Albany Business Review for organizing today’s event, The Queensbury Hotel for hosting, and panelists Mark Levack, Spencer Montgomery, and Jim Siplon for sharing their perspectives on the North Country’s future.