For more than a decade, Suffolk County business leaders have been trying to figure out ways to keep the area’s brightest and most creative youth from fleeing Long Island and taking their talents to other states.
All that hard work seems to have paid off.
In recent years, a growing number of technology startups are flocking to what is now called “the Huntington corridor” — a strip of Route 25A between the Nassau county border and east Huntington — and other sites along the North Shore.
In the last year, Huntington became home to about five tech startups, according to Anthony Manetta, the CEO of the Suffolk County Industrial Development Agency. He said that he believes that Huntington is becoming the focus of new tech startups because of its downtown.
“Huntington village provides a vibrant work environment, nightlife and recreational opportunities which are key to attracting successful startups like those in New York City and Williamsburg,” Manetta said in an interview in November. “What’s different from years past is that now the IDA is very aggressive at bridging relationships with tech startups. We have a bigger concentration of younger seed and venture capital investors working this market than we did in the past.”