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Kodak, the 131-year-old photography pioneer, filed for bankruptcy on January 19th 2012.Eastman Kodak announced early this morning that filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy was “the right thing to do for the future” of the company.In a statement, Kodak CEO Antonio Perez said company leadership decided the move was “a necessary step.”Innovation Trail has followed the story over the course of 2012.

Non-profits and incubators set to move into unused Kodak space

WXXI/File Photo

 

Rochester city and business officials want to emphasize the efforts at innovation that are going on downtown, by designating what they are calling a "downtown innovation zone." 

That's something that Heidi Zimmer-Meyer of the Rochester Downtown Development Corporation says could help bring more attention to changes that are going on in the local economy.

“We also know we’ve got the Center for Urban Entrepreneurship that RIT is doing, we’ve got the announcement by Kodak that they’re going to have a kind of  incubator,  start-up space in (Kodak’s downtown office building), we know that MCC’s (Monroe Community College) new campus is going to have a component like this and there are other announcements we hope to hear more about formally in the next couple of weeks,” Zimmer-Meyer told WXXI News.

Officials at Kodak this week said that they are going to start sharing some of the space they have in the Kodak headquarters building on State Street for non-profit organizations and incubator-type operations to help provide a foundation for innovative ideas.

City officials say Rochester is under consideration for private grants that would help the city expand its newly created office of innovation and strategic initiatives.

Randy Gorbman is WXXI's firector of news and public affairs. Randy manages the day-to-day operations of WXXI News on radio, television, and online.