The Tech Garden’s new 2,200-square-foot hardware center, which can accommodate light assembly activity. CenterState CEO on Tuesday morning formally opened the hardware center. (Eric Reinhardt / BJNN)
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — CenterState CEO on Tuesday formally opened the Tech Garden’s new 2,200-square-foot hardware center, which already has a company using it.
The facility can accommodate light assembly activity. Tech Garden tenant Density has one full production line that’s operational.
When fully utilized, the hardware center can support two lines capable of producing 30,000 units annually. The development of the hardware center will support companies in the expansion phase of their life cycle offering small companies a significant opportunity to conduct product assembly “in a convenient and cost-effective location,” CenterState CEO said in a news release.
CenterState CEO, Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh, Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon, and Density founder and CEO Andrew Farah participated in the formal-opening event on Tuesday morning.
“We now have a road map at the Tech Garden. We can bring entrepreneurs in here all the way from the ideation stage. We bring through a stage called acceleration. We bring though a stage called incubation. The last stage on the road map is expansion, and that’s what we’re going to talk about today,” Rick Clonan, VP of innovation and entrepreneurship at CenterState CEO, said in his remarks at the event.
The hardware center is for Tech Garden clients that are in the expansion stage, he added.
First company to use
Density has been Tech Garden client for eight years and is ready to expand. Density — a company that builds an anonymous workplace-analytics product to count foot traffic in and out of businesses — is the first Tech Garden tenant to use the hardware center.
“[It] turns out that building it in Syracuse is cost-neutral with China. We decided that it would make zero sense to send our [intellectual property] overseas and instead keep it here in the U.S.,” Farah said in his remarks. “I’m very proud that our company was founded here and I’m very proud to say that our product is physically manufactured here.”
As a result of the new hardware center and “growing demand from customers,” the company relocated its manufacturing operations from a third party in Dallas, Texas to the Tech Garden where it will conduct final assembly, calibration, and testing. Its products are then shipped to companies “all over the world.”
In the coming year, Density will nearly will nearly double its Syracuse workforce as it expects to create as many as 15 jobs, including factory positions and supporting roles. That growth makes Density the Tech Garden’s largest tenant. It currently has 45 employees companywide, with offices in Syracuse, New York City, and San Francisco.
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com
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