ROCHESTER, NY (WXXI) - Governor Andrew Cuomo was in town Wednesday for a ribbon cutting at the Rochester Airport.
Under the new awning, Cuomo stood with local and state officials to celebrate the project that took just over a year to complete.
He said to grow upstate New York we need to invest in it.
"The proof is in the pudding, you see Rochester blooming everywhere: the work force is blooming, the jobs are coming back, tourism is going through the roof. The whole Finger Lakes region is doing great with tourism."
If you want more tourism he said, you need better ways for people to get here.
He also said you see more and more younger people coming to the airport, a sign that people are moving here.
"For decades, you’d come to an airport like this and you’d always see the same scene: You’d see parents taking their child to the airport because their child was going somewhere else to find a job and find a future. And the parents were staying behind."
Cuomo said airports are no longer a place where you just drop people off, they’re a place to hang out and do business and many need to change to accommodate that, and added that the renovations were completed with nonpartisan support.
The project began in April 2017.