State officials have released this partial list of which projects will get immediate funding through the North Country Regional Economic Development grant process award, unveiled yesterday:

• Rehabilitation of 46.25 miles of the rail line serving the Newton Fall Fine Paper, Benson Mines and Slack Chemical — $9.97 Million (St. Lawrence County)
• Expansion of the Bombardier Mass Transit Corporation’s production facility and extension of the railcar test track to increase efficiency, flexibility and capacity for new contracts — $2.5 Million (Clinton County)
• Development of a destination boutique hotel along the south shore of the St. Lawrence River in Clayton — $2.25 Million (Jefferson County)
• Modernize laboratory medical facilities and hire additional scientists to explore disease protection techniques at Trudeau Institute — $1.2 Million (Franklin County)
• Redevelopment of the former Lyons Falls Paper Mill site to make it shovel-ready for mixed use as a business park — $330,000 (Lewis County)
• Expansion of broadband access throughout Hamilton County — $4 Million (Hamilton County)
• Rehabilitation of a combined wastewater and stormwater sewer system in the Town of Ticonderoga — $598,575 (Essex County)

The North Country is among top winners in Gov. Cuomo’s regional economic development competition – 103.2 million dollars.  The announcement this morning capped months of work by a diverse group of community leaders. After the grip and grin onstage, Gov. Cuomo added a shout-out to the NC regional council: "Good job, North Country!"

The mood was electric as the announcements trickled out.  A large contingent of folks from the region are in Albany for the ceremony, including Brian Mann, who'll have  more on what it all means today during All before 5, and during regional news tomorrow morning.

Western New York, Central new York and Long Island were other top winners, but all the regions won at least $40 million. 720 projects. &785.5 million dollars in total.

To give you a sense of just how important this decision is to the region, here's a partial list of North Country leaders on-hand:

Saranac Lake Mayor Clyde Rabideau, Clarkson president Tony Collins, Assemblywomen Janet Duprey and Teresa Sayward. Olympic Regional Development CEO Ted Blazer, Essex County tourism chief Jim McKenna, Plattsbugh Chamber president Gary Douglas, Adirondack Park Agency chairwoman Lani Ulrich…

I'm blogging live from Albany where Governor Andrew Cuomo is about to announce which regions will win the big $40 million packages designed to boost economic development.

Four of ten regions will take home the big prize — taking home $40 million apiece.  The other six regions will divvy up a much smaller pool of money.

Gary Douglas, one of the co-chairs of the North Country's Regional Economic Development Council told me a few moments ago that he's had no hints, no indications about the likely outcome.

The Cuomo administration is known for playing its cards very close to the vest — yesterday's tax deal being a case in point — and this decision is no exception.

Assemblywoman Teresa Sayward also noted this morning that her district could see big economic boosts from any of three different regional councils, the North Country, the Capital Region, or the Mohawk Region.

So this could be kind of a mixed decision.  More soon…

The first word in the new North Country Regional Economic Development plan — the banner headline really — is "transformational."

Here's a link to the document, now available in complete form, which has already been sent to Albany for review by state officials.

I want to urge In Box readers first to look through the plan and then to chime in on one question:  Does it live up to that very large, very ambitious word?

Is this a menu of visions and projects that will transform the seven-county North Country in positive ways?  That's the measuring rod state officials will use when deciding which regional plan will receive a bonus allotment of $40 million.

There are things in here that I find very interesting, including a sizable loan fund for new tourism start-ups, and some micro-enterprise efforts that include a mobile poultry processing plant.

The biggest single item that the Council wants state officials to fund is the refurbishment of the industrial railroad line to the Newton Falls paper mill in southern St. Lawrence County — to the tune of nearly $10 million.

Here's the vision statement that binds all this together:

We will energize our micropolitan cities, building on growth in the aerospace, transit equipment, defense, biotech, and manufacturing industries.  Attract and nurture entrepreneurial pioneers to cultivate innovative clusters in our rural communities.

Mobilize the creativity and capacity of the graduates of our outstanding places of higher education.  Catalyze the highest per capita rate of small business start-ups in the state. Elevate global recognition of the region as one of the special places on the planet to visit, live, work and study. Activate tourism as a driver to diversify our economies. Propagate an agricultural revolution as we help feed the region and the world.  Create the greenest energy economy in the state.

I don't think I'm betraying a bias when I say that this all sounds pretty great.

The question is whether this is a roadmap that might get us there?  What's your first blush opinion?  Good ideas in here?  Bad ideas?

And how about the process?  Was it exciting to see this conversation generated locally, rather than focused in Albany?  Was your voice heard?  As always, your comments welcome below.

The North Country Regional Economic Development Council's new list of priority projects includes a proposal for the state to invest $2.6 million in an effort to help "brand" the seven-county region.  Here's what the plan has to say:

"This project will create a regional brand that communicated the unique identity of the seven county region, attracting new visitors, residents, entrepreneurs, and investment, and opening new access to markets for the region’s businesses and organizations."

We've debated this before here on the In Box, whether the Adirondack-North Country has (or needs) a recognizable brand, and what it might take to create one.

Which brings us, finally, to this morning's Morning Read.  On the Adirondack Almanack, Kimberly Rielly, director of communications for the Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism, has an interesting essay questioning the value or viability of all this.

If we, as marketers, “owned” everything inside the [Adirondack] blue line, we could force everyone to adhere to the Adirondacks’ brand guidelines, and police all use of the approved logo and messaging that reflects the customer experience.

But this isn’t Disney World. The Adirondack region as a whole is only treated as one entity from a regulatory standpoint; by the Adirondack Park Agency (APA).

Otherwise, it is, indeed fragmented into separate delineations for counties, and various New York State agencies with multiple regions, including DEC, DOT, Parks and Recreation, ESD, etc.

It's an interesting, thorny question.  Vermont, New York City, and Hawaii are all pretty fragmented places, yet they have successfully crafted brands which seem to boost their profile.   So what makes us so different?

Read Rielly's essay here and chime in below.  What do you think?  Do you hope an intensive branding effort gets off the ground? Or, as Rielly suggests, should we "continue to promote our destinations as we have been"?