Hexagon House, St. Johnsville, NY

Even the New York Times lamented the closing of the iconic Miss Albany Diner this morning.

The Miss Albany, a streamlined metal diner fabricated to look like a railroad car, has been a fixture of north Albany since Herbert H. Lehman was governor, but it is closing on Friday.

The lot Miss Albany occupies, about a mile and a half from the Capitol, was the site of a lunch cart that opened in 1929, serving workers in what was a commercial and industrial area. The railroad-car-style diner was erected in 1941 and named Lil’s Diner, after Ms. McCauliff. In the mid-1980s, it was restored for use in “Ironweed,” a film starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep that was based on the novel by William Kennedy; the filmmakers called it the Miss Albany Diner, taking the name from a onetime chain of local diners.

Read the full story here.

From the Times Union:

The Miss Albany Diner, a fixture in the city’s warehouse district since 1941, will close after lunch service next Friday (2/10). It has been sold to a real-estate company held by the owners of Wolff’s Biergarten, located next door to the diner’s 893 Broadway location. There are no immediate plans to reopen it as a diner, says Matt Baumgartner, who bought the diner with partners Jimmy and Demetra Vann, with whom he co-owns Wolff’s and The Olde English Pub & Pantry, also on Broadway in Albany.

A purchase price was not disclosed. When the diner was first announced for sale, in late 2009, the Browns were asking $350,000 for it.

Read the Times Union’s extensive coverage here.

Related articles

• ‘Miss Albany Diner’ producers undaunted by sale, closure (timesunion.com)
• Miss Albany Diner sold to Wolff’s, will close; ideas for replacement? (timesunion.com)

The annualized vacancy rate in the Albany metro area was 3.3 percent in 2011, the 22nd lowest rate among 200 metro areas surveyed by REIS, a real estate research firm in New York City. The annualized vacancy rate in the U.S. was 5.9 percent. In the Northeast, it was 4 percent, according to Reis.

The annualized rate is the average of the current vacancy rate and the rate from the same quarter of the previous year. In the Albany area, those rates were 3 percent and3.7 percent, respectively. As vacancies declined, average asking rents rose 3.2 percent for two-bedroom units, 2.4 percent for studio apartments, 1.8 percent for three-bedroom units and 0.6 percent for one-bedroom units. The increases were on an annualized basis. Reis surveyed 115 apartment complexes.

Click here to read the full story.

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• Vacancy Rate Falls To Lowest Level Since 2006 (brendanfontaine.wordpress.com)

Sunrise Management & Consulting’s “Multifamily Rental Market Report Fall 2011″ reports that multifamily rental rates are recovering throughout the northeast market. The Northeastern Regional Overview states:

The Fall 2011 Sunrise Multifamily Rental Market Report finds average rental rates throughout the Northeast to be at or above rental rate levels from the Fall of 2008, having mostly recovered from the economic downturn. These findings are driven by rising demand for rentals amid constrained inventory throughout the region.

Average rent in the Capital Region was up 3.5% over Fall 2010 and 8.4% over Fall 2008.

Read the full report here.

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• Declining Multifamily Vacancy Rates Point to Future Growth (eyeonhousing.wordpress.com)
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Trader Joe's is coming to the #Albany area. Confirms store for Wolf Road in Colonie. bit.ly/yQ9MiA—
Chris Churchill (@chris_churchill) January 06, 2012

Shirley’s diner in Saratoga Springs sold to former Canadian race track president bizjournals.com/albany/news/20… via @Business_Review—
Gary Snowdon (@garysnowdon) December 19, 2011

So, to those of you who know me from my association with CBRE-Albany and L.B. Berdan, “Welcome to Snowdon Valuation.” My contact information is listed on the sidebar at right. I look forward to our continued relationship!

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New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo announced today that IBM, Intel, Samsung, TSMC, and GlobalFoundaries will all be adding jobs upstate, according to the Business Review.

Five major international computer-chip companies will inject $4.4 billion into five new R&D operations in New York to develop the next generation of chips. The state is contributing another $400 million to the initiative.

Albany will be a focal point, mainly through the University at Albany’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering. The moves, announced Tuesday, will help retain or create 800 jobs at Albany NanoTech, and create an estimated 1,500 construction jobs in Albany. Also, Intel Corp. will locate its 450mm East Coast headquarters in Albany.

The term “450mm”refers to the size  of the wafers the computer chips are built upon, and it represents the next wave of computer-chip technology. The current standard is 300mm.

Other upstate sites will include Utica, Canandaigua, East Fishkill and Yorktown Heights.

Related articles

• IBM, Intel to Invest $4.4 Billion in New York Nanotechnology (businessweek.com)
• Gov. Cuomo announces $4.4 billion investment in state (troyrecord.com)
• City Room: High-Tech Companies to Invest $4 Billion in New York State, Cuomo Says (cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com)

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• The Appraisal Spreadsheet (thesnowdonreport.wordpress.com)

It’s a lesson that’s all too easy to forget in a world driven by mobile devices, cloud computing and home offices. There are big benefits to setting up shop in the right spot—especially among lots of peers in the same field.

Just ask sports-gear makers in Ogden, Utah. Or health-care companies in Nashville. Or nanotechnology researchers in Albany, N.Y. These cities, and others like them across the country, have become hubs for specific industries. Entrepreneurs are moving there and flourishing in the teeth of a bleak economy. The cities, in turn, are nurturing the entrepreneurs by giving them access to funding, mentors and facilities.

The capital of New York state is becoming a big player in a field that deals with small things—nanotechnology. The city now boasts more than 4,000 people in the industry, centered on the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering at the University at Albany.

Mia Ertas/CNSE

Albany is becoming a big player in a field that deals with small things—nanotechnology.

The school has doubled in size during the recession to its current 800,000-square-foot complex. Dozens of nanotechnology companies have established a presence there to take advantage of research facilities and business incubators; since 2008, nearly 50 new start-ups have launched within its walls.

The build-out was part of a state plan, formulated years earlier, to revive the economy in upstate New York. Financing came partly from the state and partly from corporations like International Business Machines Corp., which now have offices there alongside entrepreneurs. That means companies can share the cost of equipment and labor—and start-ups get to associate themselves with big names.

“The prestige of being here and the credibility is amazing, which helps when you are talking with VCs and investors and large companies,” says Primal Fernando, CEO and chief technology officer of Resource Management Technology Systems Inc., which moved to Albany from La Junta, Colo., last year. “And the equipment available here is not available elsewhere.”

Many companies are launching off-campus, as well, in laboratories that are opening in once-vacant buildings. And financiers and other vital players have been moving in to be a part of the action.

“Venture capital has been growing to feed the innovation,” says Alain Kaloyeros, a physics professor and senior vice president of the college. “Suppliers and law firms are moving to the region to support this ecosystem, so it will be quite an exciting venture to watch.”

Read the rest here.