The new year is a good time to reflect upon all that we, as a community, have accomplished and, most importantly, thank those whose support, participation and collaboration enabled our success.
A tremendous amount of our growth results from our highly engaged residents. Through ongoing strategic planning, their insights inform our work and enable us to leverage our assets to create a shared vision for the future. Our Sustainability Advisory Board advances practices to reduce our environmental impact, and in 2022 nearly 28,000 pounds of composting was diverted from the landfill. Other board and commission members lend their expertise on diversity, equity and inclusion, planning, zoning, architecture, parks and trails and more.
We are profoundly grateful to our 131 city employees, from police officers and maintenance crews to administrative staff, who make New Albany a great place to live and work. We count on them to find cost-effective ways to address community needs, deploy new technologies and promote practices that make us more efficient and customer centric, and manage expenses. As a result, the City of New Albany received the 2022 cashvest® 90+ Award recognizing public entities earning and saving taxpayers’ resources.
Little of this would be possible without the businesses that chose to invest in our future. We are indebted to business park pioneers like Aetna and Abercrombie & Fitch, that saw the promise beyond the cornfields and were among the first to locate and expand here. We thank Accel, Axium and KDC who were among the first to commit to our Personal Care & Beauty Campus, a vertically integrated supply chain that expedites design, manufacturing, packaging and distribution of personal care and beauty products. The campus’ success has led Axium to more than double its presence and helped attract companies like Alene Candles, Reike and Voyant.
American Regent and Mount Carmel New Albany, early investors in our Health & Life Sciences Cluster, seeded the way for others, including Amgen, Pharmavite and Amplify Bio. AEP collaborated with the city to build New Albany Net, our robust fiber optic network that made it possible to attract industry leaders to our Information Technology and Mission Critical cluster. Thanks also to Google, Facebook and our other data center partners who call New Albany home. Total investment in the New Albany International Business Park has grown 813% this past decade, generating additional revenues to support growth in services and amenities.
Finally, we thank our many partners, from our school districts and townships to The New Albany Company, New Albany Chamber and The New Albany Community Foundation. These entities help us elevate our quality of life and our economic wellbeing. Together and connected, we will continue to evolve to meet our community’s changing needs while advancing our founding pillars of lifelong learning, health and wellness, arts and culture, and sustainability.