Bitwise Industries has chosen a Sycamore Street building owned by Douglas Jemal as the long-term site for its technology campus in Buffalo.
The 32,000-square-foot building at 368 Sycamore St. on Buffalo’s East Side will host Bitwise programs, including classrooms for training tech workers, offices for its software development company and spaces for ancillary services such as child care.
It will also co-locate other tech companies and service providers – a model it honed in building similar projects in California.
The project is a major investment in an overlooked section of the city, surrounded by poverty-stricken neighborhoods Bitwise seeks to serve. The initiative in Buffalo gained support and investment from a series of major players in the local corporate and philanthropic communities specifically because of its mandate to train people for high-paying tech careers, with a holistic system of supporting them and its own software development shop to hire trainees while they begin their career.
[Related: How Bitwise was lured to Buffalo]
Bitwise is still in the process of designing the space, and doesn’t have a specific timeframe for the extensive redevelopment work to come.
But its local leader said the company is looking forward to becoming a beacon of economic hope in inner-city Buffalo, four months after a racist shooting rampage at Tops Friendly Markets on Jefferson Street rocked the region.
“This has been a challenged or forgotten area for so long,” said CJ Banks, vice president of Bitwise Industries in Buffalo. “There are going to be opportunities that this building is going to present, and we think it is going to give a whole lot of individuals a different outlook on life.”
Banks, who worked in the past for nonprofits Buffalo Urban League and Epic, was hired earlier this year to lead Bitwise’s growing local presence.
While the building is a major milestone for the project, his team still must convince people in the community to take the programs, and for local corporations to take those graduates seriously.
Banks said the median average home value in the surrounding community is $98,000, and the median income is about $30,000.
“In order to see something like this in Buffalo, you’ve always had to go downtown, or out-of-town,” Banks said. “I think this starts to build a sense of pride in your neighborhood when you see people investing, and people want to be a part of what’s happening there.”
Bitwise itself is a startup that has raised more than $100 million in venture capital, and is using that money to take what has worked in California and build out campuses across the U.S.
Financial backers of the project locally include the 43North Foundation, M&T Bank, the Ralph J. Wilson Jr. Foundation, TechBuffalo and Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield of Western New York.
“This collaborative effort will open doors for those that are often underrepresented in the industry,” said Michael Edbauer, Highmark BCBS of WNY president. “When done in an inclusive way, workforce development builds and strengthens communities. Embedding itself in East Buffalo is an important step for Bitwise to understand and support the needs of our community.”
Several of M&T’s top executives have become personally invested in making the project a success. M&T has committed to a mass tech hiring initiative, recently opened a $58 million Tech Hub in Jemal-owned Seneca One Tower in downtown Buffalo and established its own Tech Academy, which includes internal training and workforce programs.
“For decades, technology jobs were concentrated in places on our nation’s coasts, cities like Seattle, San Francisco, New York and other coastal behemoths,” said Mike Wisler, M&T’s chief information officer. “But Buffalo has begun to challenge the major tech metros and creating inclusive pathways to tech jobs is one of the ways we’ll win. Bitwise, and all of the tech companies that have chosen Buffalo, are helping secure our future as a dynamic tech economy that attracts, retains and cultivates an inclusive workforce with the skills our times demand.”
TechBuffalo – a nonprofit whose mission is to create more Western New York tech professionals – will be a key partner in helping Bitwise integrate into the community.
“An important component of making tech accessible and creating an inclusive tech community is meeting people where they are,” said Sarah Tanbakuchi, CEO of TechBuffalo. “Bitwise embodies this belief and their decision to establish their permanent Buffalo home on our East Side is an important way they will meet local needs and is an exciting next step.”
Jemal bought the building on spec earlier this year. It is his first acquisition on the East Side, though he has expressed interest in redeveloping the Central Terminal.
He said the Bitwise project will be a powerful addition to the neighborhood.
"It will contain all the things that go into bringing people from the community off the street and teaching them coding so they can get good-paying jobs,” he said. “It’s a phenomenal story and it’s great to have them in Buffalo.”
The Bitwise project is the first investment made by the 43North Foundation, created to manage the proceeds when winners of its namesake competition go public or get acquired. The foundation’s board chair William Maggio and vice chair Eric Reich have been working on the Bitwise project for more than a year.
Reich said Bitwise’s robust training programs and software development team in Buffalo will open a spigot of diversity into an industry that famously skews white and male.
He said this is a chance to tackle the diversity issue while Buffalo’s tech economy is still emerging, rather than the boomtowns that look back and realize just how few of their members are people of color.
“I think we’re absolutely making progress as a tech and entrepreneurial ecosystem, but we won’t be truly successful or see maximum benefit until tech education is available to our entire population,” Reich said. “Especially in those communities that have not historically seen tech as an accessible career opportunity, Bitwise is one of the vehicles that we hope solves that challenge.”
