Montgomery College Celebrates RISE Zone Designation

Montgomery College held a ribbon-cutting for the RISE Zone Designation on Monday, November 26. The event featured Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett (in one of his last public appearances as County Executive), Sen. Nancy King, and the PIC MC Foundation Board of Directors. The event was held in Globe Hall on the Germantown Campus.

In October, the Maryland Department of Commerce approved a Regional Institution Strategic Enterprise Zone, or RISE Zone, for Montgomery College’s Germantown Campus. The designation aims to spur economic development and job creation by allowing commercial and industrial businesses that move into or expand significantly within the zones to benefit from real property and income tax credit.

"The RISE Zone is all about jobs being created in the county," said Leggett. "It provides a business incentive to make sure these top quality jobs are focused around Montgomery College, right here in Germantown. That is certainly something worth celebrating."

The College’s RISE Zone is the first for a Maryland community college and the first zone designation for Montgomery County. Businesses in targeted industries, including engineering, cybersecurity, additive manufacturing, aerospace, and biotechnology, among others, will be eligible to receive increased incentives. Businesses that locate in the new RISE Zone will have access to the campus’s cyber lab, Bioscience Education Center, the Montgomery County-owned Germantown Innovation Center, and Holy Cross Germantown Hospital.

"It's exciting how Montgomery College is consistently looking at creative ways to deliver education," said Sen. Nancy King. "And RISE Zones are pairing companies with students so they are coming out of college getting great paying jobs. MC is one of the most creative places in the country in looking at students and jobs and what they will end up being and doing in their futures."

In addition to being named a designated RISE Zone, the Germantown Campus has also been named an Opportunity Zone. Opportunity Zones provide federal tax incentives to spur investment in underserved communities by attracting investment. These incentives can spur further economic development in the form of job creation and revitalization, providing new opportunities for business, housing, and retail growth.

Having a RISE Zone designation around its integrated academic, business, and research campus (PIC MC) in Germantown will accelerate the College's partnership with the county, and increase efforts to leverage MC’s best institutional assets to attract businesses and jobs where they are most needed in our community.

“The RISE Zone builds on a long-standing partnership between Montgomery College, the state of Maryland, and Montgomery County to create the Pinkney Innovation Complex for Science and Technology (PIC MC) on the College’s Germantown Campus,” said Dr. Stephen Cain, interim president of Montgomery College. “The goal has been to further integrate learning with job growth and workforce development, and to stimulate economic development. We are growing our Germantown Campus into a hub of education, employment, and entrepreneurship.”

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