John Gillie, a native of Cohoes, is hoping to bring 200 plus jobs back to his hometown. He wants to make electric vehicles in a new factory on Grand Island.

What is the Goal of the New Factory?

Gillie's new company called Green Island EV will make micro-transit shuttles to be used for public transportation. These electric vehicles will make New York City and other cities that want to go green, a chance to buy from New York state instead of having to import the vehicles from Europe, China, or California.

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Where is the Factory Going to Be?

Gillie plans to build the one hundred fifty thousand square foot facility on fifteen acres of the fifty available near Tibbits Avenue and Cannon Street on Green Island. This used to be the home of the Ford factory according to the Albany Business Review.

What Electric Vehicles Will be Built?

Gillie says he wants to focus on public transportation. It is more efficient and besides just using it for municipalities, the electric shuttles could be used by universities or larger companies to transport employees. He said cities want to be more green.

There's a huge market for micro-transit. The last thing [cities] want to do is build more parking lots. It's redundant. It's so inefficient: Build a parking lot that is ugly to put a car that nobody uses.

Photo by Mario Sessions on Unsplash
Photo by Mario Sessions on Unsplash
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Green Island is Unique to Keep Costs Down

Green Island owns its own utility. Manufacturing costs would be much lower because of this. There still would have to be a study done by the village to determine if there is enough room.

What's the Plan?

The Liuzzi Cos would build a $40 million factory and then lease the space to Green Island EV. $10 million dollars would be used to build the campus and $30 million will go towards building the factory. If everything goes through, they hope to start building around May or June of this year.

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Heartwrenching Look at Beloved Capital Region Concert Venue Before Demolition

The Starlite Music Theater opened in 1957 and was a popular venue located in Latham. There were many acts that passed through the Starlite until 1997. It was a 3,000 seat theater in the round. In the 1980s I saw Belinda Carlisle of the Go Gos at the Starlite Music Theater. Kenny Rogers, The Monkees, Weird Al Yankovic, Jonny Cash, Run DMC, Diana Ross, and more graced the stage. The Starlite closed its doors in 1998 and laid dormant for years. Then in December of 2012, the Starlite was demolished. Here are pictures of the venue in the summer of 2012 before it was leveled.

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