Wall Street gives Pa. the hot site cold shoulder

Computerworld - An attempt by nine counties in northeastern Pennsylvania to encourage Manhattan-based financial services companies to set up business continuity facilities has not yet signed any clients and is competing with existing installations in New Jersey.

The Wall Street West project, as the state government is calling it, is based in the Pocono Mountains and is intended to provide business continuity facilities -- including on-site employees -- to New York-based companies in case of a natural or terrorist disaster. The project has received $15 million in three-year grants from the federal government for training residents, and it expects to receive more than $10 million from the state to help develop fiber infrastructure over the next 15 to 18 months, according to Jim Ryan, director of outreach and network development for the project. The state is looking at the project to help revitalize the blue-collar area, he said (see "Disaster recovery site puts terrorist bull's-eye on Pa").

A contract to provide fiber infrastructure was supposed to have been awarded on Nov. 17 by Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell's office but had not yet been awarded by press time, according to Laura Eppler, a spokeswoman for Ben Franklin Technology Partners, a Harrisburg, Pa.-based economic development organization. Ben Franklin Technology Partners is funded by the state and is helping with the project, and it is administering the federal training grant.

"Wall Street West" refers to Ryan's nonprofit agency set up to develop the area, but it has also been used to refer to the Penn Regional Business Center, a mixed-use business development planned by Larry T. Simon, a major Pennsylvania developer. The center hosted an event on Oct. 10 for 24 representatives from 17 Wall Street companies, including Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch & Co. and Prudential Financial Inc., featuring Dennis Yablonsky, Pennsylvania's chief of economic development.

Attendees, some of whom asked not to be identified, said in general that the project was interesting -- just not for them. They expressed concern about a number of aspects, ranging from the square footage the developer was looking to lease to a current lack of transportation and communications infrastructure. Other attendees indicated that they already felt they had enough redundancy in their existing setups not to need it.

Steve White, vice president of information systems services at Jersey City, N.J.-based Insurance Services Office Inc., said he thought the project was a great idea but that the developer was looking for anchor companies with larger square-footage requirements than his that would keep them regularly staffed. White said he is considering a lights-out, 6,000- to 15,000-sq.-ft. facility in 2009 as a secondary location to his company's Jersey City building and as a lower-cost replacement for an existing third-party disaster recovery company.