A cautious New York begins creaking back to economic life

In this August 2018 file photo, a woman walks a small dog near a sign at Finger Lakes Welcome Center on the banks of Lake Geneva in Geneva, N.Y. Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday, May 11, 2020, gave the green light to several regions of the state not as severely affected by the outbreak to gradually restart their economies once the latest stay-at-home order expires Friday. The Southern Tier, Mohawk Valley, and the Finger Lakes have met all seven benchmarks for opening some business activity and need to work out some logistical details by the end of the week, Cuomo said. The North Country, which includes Essex County, is close behind. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

ALBANY, New York — Shuttered sectors of New York’s economy will begin inching back to life Friday with more construction, manufacturing, and curbside retail pickups allowed in parts of the state that are hours away from pandemic-stricken New York City.

The smaller cities and rural regions of upstate New York have been spared the brunt of the coronavirus outbreak. Gov. Andrew Cuomo is allowing many of those areas to gradually reopen first, industry by industry.

The first wave of businesses includes retail — though only for curbside or in-store pickup — along with construction and manufacturing.

In the largely rural Mohawk Valley, DANVANN Construction & Development is set to begin an excavation job Monday at a lake on the southern edge of the huge Adirondack Park.

“I’ve been lounging around the house a lot, and I’m ready to get busy,” said employee Justin Brown. “I’d rather be working.”

Job site rules will be different next week, with workers keeping their hands disinfected and their faces covered, said company owner Dan Roth, who has been paying his four idled employees.

They’ll also “have to stay 6 feet away from each other as best as you possibly can,” he said.

Cuomo’s administration divided the state into 10 regions that will reopen on different timetables.

Restrictions can’t be eased until a region meets seven benchmarks demonstrating that COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations are down and that there are enough hospital beds if the outbreak flares up again. Each region must have a program of testing and contact tracing.

The five regions of New York poised to open Friday cover a wide strip down the middle of the state. Excluded are New York City, Long Island and the Hudson Valley on the state’s east side, and the Buffalo region to the west.

It might resemble a soft opening.

A lot of manufacturing, construction, and retail deemed essential has continued in New York during the lockdown. And curbside retail pickup has been available for food, wine, and some other retail goods.

In Rochester, Tanvi Asher has been filling orders online for her Shop Peppermint and Salty Boutique clothing stores. She already has signs telling customers to stay in their cars while a worker brings packages to them.

She will be open for curbside pickup Friday. But business is only about 25% of what it was before the pandemic, and she doesn’t expect a rebound until customers can browse the racks.

“Sadly, the truth is if I don’t open, we will close forever,” she said. “So, at some point, we’re going to have to open.”

If new COVID-19 cases remain under control during the initial reopening, regions can open more types of businesses in a couple of weeks. The next phase will include office jobs like professional services and insurance, as well as retail. Restaurants are included in the phase after that, and then finally arts, entertainment, recreation, and education.

Along with the regional reopenings, Cuomo is relaxing other restrictions statewide. Warm weather gardening and landscaping businesses got permission to restart, as did drive-in theaters.

The Four Brothers Drive-In Theater near the Connecticut border opens for the season Friday evening with “Trolls World Tour” and “Birds of Prey” showing on the big outdoor screen.

Drive-ins, a nostalgic niche business before the pandemic, are suddenly an outlet for cooped-up families to watch movies safely from their cars.

“Our only concern is making sure we can control the crowd. And we actually hired some police to come in and direct traffic,” said John Stefanopoulos, whose family runs the business 70 miles (110 kilometers) north of New York City.

Businesses in the regions slated for reopening must come up with a plan outlining how they will prevent the spread of COVID-19, with requirements for providing face coverings and “social distancing markers” in common areas.

Dandelion Energy, which installs geothermal energy systems, already has plans to stagger workers coming into its Peekskill warehouse and have crews drive in separate vehicles to installation sites.

The company has a backlog of 180 jobs it can start tackling next week, at least in the Mohawk Valley, which is poised to reopen, according to CEO Michael Sachse.

Dandelion has about 60 people on furlough and 20 active workers. Sachse said he hopes to be up to 60 active workers in June.

“The risk for us is in starting and stopping again,” Sachse said. “Our hope is that it’s just a gradual and steady ramp back up to business as normal. But realistically, it may not look that way.”