Brian Sharp

@SharpRoc

Hiring has begun for the Rochester-based photonics initiative. But after a hard-fought decision over where in downtown to locate the headquarters, those offices were unceremoniously relocated Friday to a building 15 minutes north that also will house the project's research hub.

"The headquarters is going to be here," said John Maggiore, chairman of the state photonics board, standing in the ground floor of 1964 Lake Ave. "It makes sense."

Maggiore made the comments moments after concluding a board meeting on the first floor of the building, Eastman Kodak Co.'s former Building 81, on the east side of Lake Avenue, north of West Ridge Road, on the edge of Eastman Business Park. The American Institute for Manufacturing Integrated Photonics (AIM Photonics) will share the space with ON Semiconductor.

AIM Photonics is one of a handful of public-private partnerships nationwide focused on different key scientific, economic and workforce development areas. Another is the REMADE (Reducing Embodied-Energy and Decreasing Emissions) Institute, directed by a Rochester Institute of Technology-led consortium and the Department of Energy, with a focus on clean energy and sustainable manufacturing.

The Department of Defense-led photonics initiative is, thus far, the largest of the institutes — with more than $600 million committed in federal, state and private funds. The research hub, called the Testing, Assembly and Packaging facility or TAP, is considered the central piece of the project. IBM, General Electric and Oregon-based Mentor Graphics all recently joined as top-tier partners, officials said Friday.

Rochester was chosen to anchor the national photonics initiative in 2015. And after the initial hub-bub, what came to define the project in those early days was infighting, and a very public power struggle over the headquarters site. Business leaders, including Robert Duffy, president and CEO of the Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce, and leaders of SUNY Polytechnic Institute pushed the penthouse space of Legacy Tower, formerly Bausch+Lomb's offices. University of Rochester President Joel Seligman, Mayor Lovely Warren and Assembly Majority Leader Joseph Morelle, D-Irondequoit, advanced Sibley Square.

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State officials indicated back in October that the headquarters were being re-evaluated, and that it might depend on where the research hub was placed. That decision came in December. And a headquarters decision was expected in the first quarter of this year.

"I think right now, to have a separate headquarters would not be cost effective," said Duffy, now chairman of the photonics leadership council, a separate governing board of the project. "It makes sense to have it in one place, but as it expands, I think that's where you have an opportunity for Legacy Tower, the Sibley building."

There was no lease at Legacy Tower, officials said, nor other legally binding documents. And that was before the testing facility location was known.

"Nobody was talking about this location even four months ago," Maggiore said.

The research hub and headquarters together are expected to employ up to 100 people. The jobs will come in companies that locate here, or expand.

Testing, assembly and packaging are some of the most costly and challenging segments for the industry. By harnessing the power of photons, just as electronic circuits perfected the use of electrons, integrated photonics could revolutionize the internet, expand national defense capabilities when it comes to imaging, and lead to untold advances in health care delivery.

AIM Photonics CEO Michael Liehr wants to have a ribbon cutting at the Lake Avenue facility in July, and plans to have the research hub fully operational by year's end. The state board unanimously OK'd an $81 million budget for 2017-18, complete with money for workforce development.

Separately, the state in January announced a $1 million "Photonics Venture Challenge" business competition. Organizers have not yet begun taking applications.

BDSHARP@Gannett.com