Rochester Technology Park for sale 11/21/2005 11:00 PM (Rachel Barnhart, WROC-TV) It's been six years since Kodak abandoned its sprawling industrial complex on Elmgrove Rd., shocking the Rochester community and foreshadowing further plant reductions at the photo giant. Since then, the 500-acre site took on a new owner, a new name, and new tenants. California developer Brad Cohen bought the property in 2000, calling it Rochester Technology Park. With help from the state and federal government, he sunk millions of dollars into the facility, adding roads, signs, landscaping, and lighting. "My initial worries were that he's going to be an absentee owner. That's proven to be absolutely wrong," said Gates Town Supervisor Ralph Esposito. Cohen attained Empire Zone status and Foreign Trade Zone status, in an effort to lure tenants through tax breaks. He signed more than 20 new tenants. But the site remains 70 percent vacant, and Cohen has not realized the vision he set forth when he purchased the property. Rochester Technology Park is now for sale, all 7 million-plus square feet. The site is divided into 23 parcels, and bids are due by Christmas. Cohen hopes to announce the sale by the end of the year. He said he got the idea to sell from an unsolicited, "foreign buyer that actually made a pretty nice offer and really required us to take stock of where we were." Cohen said he did not accept the offer, because he's obligated to explore other interests. "There's a lot of value that we've added to the property, not just the property, but to the community. By improving this property, we've essentially taken it from a single-tenant facility to a multi-tenant facility in more of a campus environment," said Cohen, in a phone interview. Some believe Cohen's vision came at the wrong time. He bought the property just as the tech bubble was bursting, and before the 9/11 attacks that sent the economy south. "Brad's strategy was geared more toward attracting companies from the West Coast and from central United States, which may or may not have been the strategy that was wisest in this particular area," said Esposito. Esposito said Cohen's been a good neighbor, and praised him for upgrading the site and donating land for public use. Esposito hopes the next owners attract more business and jobs. Cohen says he believes the Rochester economy has hit its low-point, and has begun to recover. He says he is opening an office in Rochester to look for other real estate opportunities in upstate New York.