New York State’s tech agency opens office hub in NYC

To build out the strength of its workforce and tap into downstate tech talent, the New York State Office of Information Technology Services announced Wednesday it is opening an office hub in New York City.

The state’s recently opened, 44,000 square foot office hub is located in downtown Manhattan at 1 New York Plaza, where it will serve as an outpost to the Albany office. The tech agency has leased the entire 31st floor of the building, and will eventually have the capacity for more than 300 ITS staff members from nearly all areas of the agency’s operations, including the chief information security office, legal, digital experience, enterprise networking and user support services.

Staff recruiting and planning are underway, and Scott Reif, the chief communications officer of ITS, said the agency is “aggressively” looking to bring in skilled tech talent from the NYC metro area.

New York Chief Information Officer Dru Rai told StateScoop that opening the NYC hub has been 18-plus months in the making, a goal since he was named state CIO in 2023. Rai said ITS is still working on the office’s infrastructure, such as establishing the network and installing physical hardware, and that he hopes all work will be completed within the next 30 days.

A new 24/7 security operations center will also be housed at the site, building on the Joint Security Operations Center that Gov. Kathy Hochul opened in Brooklyn in 2022, which serves state and city agencies, along with the private sector and other critical infrastructure operators.

“I just can’t wait, this is an awesome place,” Rai told StateScoop. “With 300-plus seats, we expect at least five functional areas: Cybersecurity, which is key, and we operate JSOC— which not only helps the state, but also helps counties and many cities — so a part of the team of cybersecurity team will be there. The other talent, which the city specifically brings, is the human-centered design, especially with customer experience.” Another area of the office will be related to artificial intelligence and similar technologies, he added.

The new hub will also provide new levels of support for existing state employees across New York. Rai said there are many that already live in the NYC area and must occasionally travel upstate.

The new location also provides additional opportunity for ITS to collaborate with NYC’s Office of Technology and Innovation, which Rai said is already a symbiotic relationship.

“We are open to sharing contracts, for example. We are open to sharing common solutions if we can help, so we are working with them to see if we can help each other,” Rai said. “Just having state or city become more productive, saving time and energy and dollars, so that’s one angle. The other angle is the talent. As you know, New York City and surrounding area has — I mean, other than West Coast, probably — the highly concentrated tech talent over there, and the state has to tap into this.”

Reif and Rai both noted excitement about the new office opening and the growth of the agency, especially against the backdrop of the federal government shutdown and widespread pushes for government efficiency that have seen the government’s workforce, at all levels, shrink considerably.

“We were kind of limited, I would say, before this location,” Rai continued. “Now we have location, not a barrier. We can have 300 people just like that, and we plan to do more in downstate, but this is our first step, and we think this will help New York.”