Picente says county purchase of former golf course helped secure Chobani

ROME — Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente, Jr. believes the county’s purchase of the former Mohawk Glen Golf Course was a big factor in Chobani’s decision to build a 1.4 million square foot, $1.2 billion facility on the Triangle site at Griffiss International Airport in Rome. The golf course, which previously served the former Griffiss Air Force Base, is situated adjacent to the Triangle site. Oneida County bought the 160-acre golf course at 880 Perimeter Road W. in Rome for $1.4 million from owner Michael DeSalvio. The Oneida County Board of Legislators authorized the purchase during the Nov. 13, 2024 meeting, and the transaction closed in early January of this year.

“So, I do envision at least right now that any development there … would be focused on Chobani’s desire to add a second phase. Now, could that change? I suppose it could,” says Picente, who spoke with CNYBJ in a phone interview on July 10. Prior to Chobani’s interest and subsequent major announcement, Oneida County had envisioned developing the site into a semiconductor supply-chain campus. The county had even secured a $23.6 million award under the state’s Focused Attraction of Shovel-Ready Tracts New York (FAST NY) grant program. The FAST NY grant doesn’t apply to the golf course property, the Oneida County executive noted. Oneida County has also applied for second round of FAST NY, which also would be just for the Triangle parcel because of its size, which is larger than the golf course property, the county executive says. Picente said the initial vision for a semiconductor supply-chain campus came about “because we were hearing so much about it,” referencing both Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) in the town of Clay in Onondaga County, as well as Wolfspeed (NYSE: WOLF) in Marcy. “In economic development, a lot of times, when you’re courting companies of that size or looking at that large of footprint, they look for some buffer space and other areas for not just staging but for future development, so that’s where the focus is right now,” Picente says. He went on to say that Oneida County had been in discussions with the golf course owner about the property even before the talks with Chobani started and before the state awarded the county the grant to help develop the Triangle site. Even if Chobani hadn’t selected the Triangle site for its project, Oneida County still wanted to purchase the golf course property because “the benefit of that Triangle [site] is greater with the golf course property.” “Because everything in that area is somewhat landlocked to a degree, it makes it all the more important that those parcels that are connected remain connected,” he says. Picente told CNYBJ that Chobani had reached out to Oneida County in the middle of 2024 about the Triangle site but the discussions got “more serious” in September of last year. “It culminated when [Chobani founder and CEO Hamdi Ulukaya] himself came to meet with me in October,” says Picente. “We were moving toward an agreement.”