Stony Brook Graduate Students Help Guide Planning Of EPCAL Development

Graduate students at Stony Brook University are once again providing no cost technical research assistance to the Town of Riverhead to plan the future of Enterprise Park at Calverton (EPCAL).

Professor J. Rafael Aguayo, an internationally recognized expert in quality improvement and management, is leading a team of Stony Brook University’s College of Business students to further develop a business development plan for EPCAL.

He is being assisted by Professor Camille Abbruscato, who is helping the students with the market research part of the project.

A marketing professional for over 20 years, Abbruscato has been at Stony Brook since 2006. Her course work has included marketing, marketing research, marketing strategy, brand management, new product development, business marketing and operations. Her professional career spans both business to business and consumer product marketing, working for both small and large companies in the manufacturing sector. Abbruscato, a self-described stickler for research and data, grooms her students to support all of their ideas with facts.

Last year, previous class graduate students determined that industrial/manufacturing uses “may not be a good use” of the 2,900 acre site.

“It is hard to attract manufacturing to Long Island,” because of the geographic constraints of an island could result in tremendous bottlenecks that can cause traffic delays of several hours just to get past New York City. The future, said Aguayo, is intellectual innovation, such as computer software development and computer design. “That’s where we should be heading,” he said.

Aguayo, who started his business career in international banking, said students enrolled in the Industry Project Class will further the research of last year’s students that suggested that EPCAL become “a city within a city” to attract “knowledge workers.”

The proposal called for multifamily housing, restaurants and entertainment venues at EPCAL to complement the intellectual business park. Companies and potential employees, such as Google and Facebook, would likely be attracted to living in a vibrant, dynamic city-like location that just a few miles away, offered ocean and sound beaches and the bucolic, rural beauty of eastern Long Island. These workers would likely not contribute to further traffic congestion, as many would not require cars because everything would be located within a square mile at EPCAL.

“It would be very walker and biker friendly,” he said.

Furthermore, the “city within a city” would feature multi-family housing, which creates much less of a tax burden on local schools than single family housing. Aguayo said the concept would be tax base positive. Noxious manufacturing uses would not but be the primary target, rather new knowledge based companies, vis-à-vis Silicon Valley.

Disha Gupta, who is pursuing a degree in Economics and Environmental Studies, said she hopes the project results in a planning document that will be used to help facilitate a development that will be attractive to employers and employees.

”I hope the end result is the creation of someplace that people want to go to,” she said. “I want it to be developed like a small city, or a city within a city, that is as attractive as New York City.”

This year’s students would be broken into two teams. One will look at potential development and will study other places that can be used as models, Aguayo said. The students will be instructed to collect research to include other communities utilizing such a model, as well as survey potential employers, retailers and residents to determine their likelihood to be a part of such a community, Abbruscato said.

Concurrently, the other group of students will be collecting research on the Town of Riverhead itself to determine if such a model is lucrative, Abbruscato said.

“They will do a sampling of what it would take to draw the companies” to EPCAL, said Aguayo.

“A self-contained community significantly helps ease the burden on the infrastructure particularly regarding commutation, but it obviously still requires the use of the Town’s schools and utilities,” Abbruscato explained. “While the concept of a self-contained community consisting of employers, retailers and residents cohabiting seems extraordinary, why build it if they won’t come?”

Isha Sheth, a graduate student pursuing MBA in Marketing and Information Systems Management, said, “It’s more than just a student research project. I expect that we will come up with something that will really help the town.”

According to Aguayo, the findings would be presented to the Riverhead Town Board prior to the semester ending in December. “If the board members are interested, students next semester would take the research to the next level,” he said.

Abbruscato said, “I am so grateful and so excited to be working with the Town of Riverhead. Not only are they providing our students with the wonderful opportunity to work with a client, but they are also demonstrating their ability to be visionaries. To even consider a model that is a part of our future, not our past.”

Supervisor Sean M. Walter expressed his appreciation of the student’s efforts. “I was intrigued by what the students previously brought to the Town Board,” the Supervisor said.

“These students are incredibly bright and talented. I am looking forward to this next phase of their project and interested to see what their study will find. After all, EPCAL is Riverhead’s opportunity to have a significant economic impact for the betterment of the entire region.”

Supervisor Walter added that the continuing partnership with Stony Brook University, which has operated the Calverton Business Incubator since 2004, could result in the Town of Riverhead providing incentives under Start-Up NY. Start-Up NY is a new initiative that provides major incentives for businesses to relocate, start-up or significantly expand in New York State through affiliations with public and private universities.

The Supervisor explained that if an application is approved by New York State for Stony Brook University’s Calverton Business Incubator’s participation in the program, businesses would have the opportunity to operate state and local tax-free on a start-up campus.

The students toured the incubator this week to get a closer look at the types of businesses that are being drawn to the project site. Stony Brook Incubator Director, Monique Gablenz, said the incubator provides an opportunity for many small companies to establish themselves.

“Ideally, these companies will outgrow the incubator and locate to their own space at the Calverton Enterprise Park, she said. “The Calverton property has great infrastructure, such as water, sewer and rail access that if taken advantage of, will result in economic development benefiting Riverhead and the entire Long Island region.”

Students involved in the project include:

1) Long Island native Elise Kethman, an MBA student at Stony Brook University who is concentrating in marketing;

2) Isha Sheth, a graduate student pursuing MBA in Marketing and Information Systems Management from Stony Brook University. Originally from India, she has an in-depth knowledge of technology as she is an engineer;

3) Tingting Li, an international student from China, who has an undergraduate degree from Chengdu University of Technology with an English Major. She is now seeking an MBA and takes a concentration in Marketing at Stony Brook University;

4) Ernest D’Ambrose, a New York City native, with an undergraduate degree in psychology with a minor in chemistry. He has done research at Columbia University Medical Center;

5) Disha Gupta, a New Delhi, India native, received her undergraduate education at Stony Brook University with a degree in Economics and Environmental Studies and is now pursuing her MBA at Stony Brook University; and

6) Inderpal Singh, an MBA student at Stony Brook University, working on a dual concentration in General Management and Health Care Management.