Business

Genesee County Economic Development Center -- through its financing arm, Genesee Gateway LDC -- is committing $500,000 to redevelopment projects in the City of Batavia as well as the business districts of Genesee County's towns and villages.

The money to start the new revolving loan fund is seeded from revenue generated for the LDC by the Genesee Valley Agri-Business Park, which in the last year has seen two companies construct yogurt plants there.

"Fortunately, some of the risks we've taken and some of our strategies we've taken have created some capital," said GCEDC CEO Steve Hyde said during a joint meeting Thursday of the GCEDC and LDC boards of directors. "I'm now recommending to the local development board to say, 'let's take some of the strategic investment money from the success of the ag park and reinvest it to support the redevelopment activities and revitalization here in the city and the business centers in the towns and villages.'"

The board approved the proposal unanimously.

The vote followed presentations by Batavia Development Corp. Economic Development Coordinator Julie Pacatte and City Manager Jason Molino.

The city, which is largely built out and has some aging industrial and commercial buildings, has been developing a strategy to pursue redevelopment, adaptive reuse and in-fill development.

An example of redevelopment, Pacatte said, is the Masse Gateway project, which took old manufacturing buildings and turned them into office buildings.

Adaptive reuse would be the project now under way to convert the former Carr's warehouse in Jackson Square into retail, office and apartment space.

In-fill would be the kind of project that Pacatte said needs to take place with the Della Penna property on Ellicott Street where there's one building on the property now and another could be added to create more density and expand the range of uses for the property.

"These projects are very difficult to fund," Pacatte said, "the Carr's warehouse for example. It was a warehouse. It's becoming residential and commercial. The condition of the building today, he (the buyer) would never get a traditional mortgage to do anything with that site, so he needed to start with a lot of equity. He has to look for some other opportunities so he can cash flow the project before the the grants will come in on the back end to reimburse him."

The kind of loans available through the new Batavia Micropolitan Redevelopment Fund could have helped the Carr's Warehouse project.

The loans will need to meet a long list of requirements to be granted and can range from $25,000 to $100,000 at 80 percent of prime.

To qualify, a developer would need to have at least a 30-percent equity stake in the project or already have another traditional bank loan in place. Collateral is required and the developer must make a personal guarantee for repayment.

Legislator Marrianne Clattenburg -- who both while City Council president and as a legislator has been critical of the scant attention GCEDC has seemed to pay to redevelopment in the city -- was pleased with today's decision and was on hand to witness the vote.

"It meets what I'm looking for," Clattenburg said. "It's a start. It's a beginning and it's gratifying to see the culmination of what I believe is a partnership that's forming and a recognition that the county development agency should be into redevelopment while it's doing greenfield development. I'm gratified it's coming about and I look forward to much more in the future."

For more than a decade, at least, GCEDC has been focused on building shovel-ready parks to attract manufacturing and other industrial businesses. Its biggest success so far, with the opening of the Alpina and Muller Quaker yogurt plants, has been the ag park.

The LDC will administer the loan fund. GCEDC could become involved in projects where tax abatements are needed to assist the redevelopment effort, Hyde said.

Molino said it's really been a collaborative effort to develop the new program.

"Developing this over the past few months has been a good opportunity for everybody and hopefully there will be more opportunities where the city, the BDC and the EDC can partner and take advantage of some of the development that's happening throughout the county and really help redevelop and improve some parts of the city," Molino said.

Merchants are lining the streets in Downtown Batavia today for the first of three Thursday sidewalk sales sponsored by the Business Improvement District.

The other sidewalk sales are also on the second Thursday of the month -- in August (Aug. 8) and September (Sept. 12). Time is 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Above, Chris Merrian, Don Brown and Bryce Rogers with Charles Men's Shop, and below, John Roche, Adam Miller Toy & Bicycles.

Press release:

Batavia Downs Gaming will be closing at 10 p.m. on Monday, July 15 and reopen no later than 3 p.m. on the following day, Tuesday, July 16 to accommodate construction work.

Management is confident that the facility will reopen prior to 3 p.m. that day. Those wishing to find information on the reopening of the facility should check Batavia Downs’ Web site (bataviadownsgaming.com) as well as their social media pages on Facebook (facebook.com/bataviadowns) and Twitter (twitter.com/bataviadowns) for up to date information that day after 11 a.m.

The newly expanded gaming floor is scheduled to open on Aug. 30.

On July 2, we published, Aviation school owner says NYS Taxation and Finance driving him out of business. At the first opportunity the next morning, we sought comment from the NYS Taxation and Finance. After much unnecessary wrangling, we received answers to the following questions from the department's spokesman, Geoff Gloak.

Is Miller's general assertion true that the state has reinterpreted rules regarding sales tax on planes leased to flight schools? 

No. Any charge that DTF has suddenly reinterpreted rules regarding sales tax on planes leased to flight schools is inaccurate. There hasn’t been any recent change in the Tax Law on this matter, nor any court decisions we’re aware of that affects the matter. We have always taxed aircraft rental for flight training.

Is it true that over the past 40 years, there has been no sales tax on private planes used by students at flight schools and now there is?

No. An aircraft purchased for flight school training is not, and has not been, exempt from New York State sales tax. There has been no change in practice here.

Is it true that auditors are demanding payment of back taxes from plane owners for up to five years?

Your question seems to suggest that there’s some systematic campaign against people who own airplanes – and any such charge is categorically false. Our focus when it comes to audits is always exactly the same: Was tax due, and was it paid? This is the case for any business, in any industry.

Is it true that auditors are systematically going around to the state's flight schools and looking at whether sales tax has been paid on student's flight hours?

No. That's incorrect. There hasn’t been any change in our audit procedures, which is to examine in some form every tax return filed with the State – whether it’s personal income, corporation, or sales tax. That has been and continues to be our standard audit posture. 

If these assertions are true, what is the rational by taxation and finance? Not applicable.

Is taxation and finance concerned that private plane owners are choosing to end their association with flight schools because of this allegedly new enforcement?

There isn’t any “new enforcement.” Our goal is and always has been to help taxpayers understand the laws and regulations and to enforce those laws and regulations across the board in a fair and equitable manner.

A few summers ago, Dan Kennedy, a journalism professor at Northeastern, visited Batavia while researching a book on the future of journalism, focusing on digital efforts to provide communities with news.

In May, his book, "The Wired City," was released by the University of Massachusetts Press.

While the majority of pages in The Wired City are devoted to the New Haven Independent, a nonprofit community Web site in Connecticut, there is a section in the book about for-profit sites, including The Batavian.

For the book, Kennedy interviewed me, of course, and Tom Turnbull  and Mark Graczyk at the Batavia Daily News, Dan Fischer at WBTA, City Manager Jason Molino, Chamber of Commerce President Lynn Freeman, and Patrick Weissand, then HLOM director, among others.

In the book, you can find out a little more about the background of The Batavian, a little insider information and what some people -- Turnbull, say -- were saying about The Batavian when we were barely a year old.

Kennedy remains fascinated by an off-hand remark I made while we were driving past the Stafford Country Club during his visit -- that if I were ever a member, he'd know I was doing well with The Batavian. He mentions it his book and in a column today updating readers on the progress of The Batavian on Nieman Journalism Lab (spoiler alert: I'm not a member, not even a social member, even though I recently found out membership is a heck of a lot less expensive than I thought back during Kennedy's visit to Batavia.)

This Saturday, Kennedy will be at Present Tense Books on Washington Avenue to talk about the book and sign copies.

Fischer will interview Kennedy and me for Friday morning's Main and Center on WBTA, so tune in. I anticipate a lively discussion about local journalism, past, present and future.

I took a break from the Ramble this afternoon to go out to Ted and Patricia Hawley's barley field in Byron to get some pictures of the harvest.

The Hawleys are opening a malt house -- the first in New York in about 100 years -- and this barley will be used to create malt that can be used by microbreweries throughout the state.

All the rain we've had in the past week have made the harvest a challenge. The grain has to reach a search moisture level -- not too moist -- to be harvested. But in waiting for it to dry out there's a chance the grain could pre-germinate on the stock, which would affect the malting process.

This grain will need to be dried a bit before being stored in a bin because it's a just a bit too moist.

Above is barley grain that has been separated by the combine from the straw. The cut straw is left on the field and will be collected later. It can be used for a feed supplement, for mulch or -- according to Hawley -- dropped in ponds to purify the water. Hawley said it is very effective at cleaning pond water and the Hawleys may eventually try selling some of it for such a use.

Kevin Scroger gave me my first ride in the cab of a combine. Scroger has been operating combines since he was 14 years old. Back then, cabs weren't air conditioned. There weren't even cabs and Scroger said the combines were smaller and harvested fewer acres per hour. Not only are today's cabs air conditioned, they can be driven over a pre-defined route by a GPS system.

Bob Evans Restaurant, 196 Oak St., Batavia, will be closed from July 7-14 for a remodel that will update the interior and exterior appearance, according to Assistant General Manager Jonathan Allen.

The restaurant will add a bakery section as part of the project.

The Batavian is partnering with Rochester-based Property Source to launch a whole new way for finding and selling homes in Genesee County on a site run by Property Source under the brand ZagPad.com.

The new site will replace our housing link in our main navigation on July 15.

For the first time we will be able to offer our readers access through The Batavian to MLS listings and offer local agents great tools to feature their businesses and and their listings.

The site also features sections for rentals, home improvement and senior living.

We will also be managing the Wyoming County real estate site for ZagPad/Property Source.

We think the new site is going to offer both people looking for housing and the real estate community a set of tools and features that haven't truly been available locally before.

As Genesee County's #1 online news source, the #1 Web site of any kind locally, we are excited to bring the county one centralized, go-to place for real estate.

One of the things we liked about ZagPad is the platform gives us the opportunity to deliver to our local readers and advertisers a Genesee County-focused real estate Web site -- one that is tied into a regional network of real estate listings and media partners (such as WHAM13 and WHEC in Rochester and the Bee Newspapers in Erie County). This gives local users and advertisers the best of both worlds -- a local focus with a regional reach.

Real estate agents and brokers who need more information should call Lisa Ace at (585) 250-4118.

Every five years, the Town of Oakfield replaces one of its plow trucks. This year, the town board decided to keep it local and asked Highway Superintendent Alan Dennis to explore the idea of having the new truck built by Viking Cives.

The truck company moved to a location on Judge Road in Oakfield several years ago.

"We thought that was important to support the local economy and business located right here in town," Dennis said.

The $228,000 plow truck replaces a 15-year-old plow and is state-of-the-art, Dennis said. The computer controls are LCD lit and touch control. Using a joy stick, the truck driver can operate all of the truck's functions as a one-man-operation.

Supervisor Mike Cianfrini said with Viking's solid reputation for quality and service, it was really a simple choice to go with the local company.

"From the town perspective we wanted to support a business in our community," Cianfrini said. "They've been a great neighbor, supporting a lot of activities within Oakfield and we thought the least we could do is support them."

The town took delivery of the truck today and plow truck operator Mike Schultz, pictured below, couldn't wait to get in the new machine and drive it off to the town's garage.

Press release:

Why do you leave Genesee County to eat? That’s exactly what the Restaurant Creativity Advocates want to find out. In response to sales leakage reports provided by W-ZHA and The Community Land Use & Economics Group, a brief survey was developed for area residents to explain their dining and travel habits. The survey is available now through July 12th online at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/N6SCRMV.

The Restaurant Creativity Advocates is a local group formed by representatives of the Genesee County Chamber of Commerce, Genesee Community College’s The BEST Center, Batavia Development Corporation, downtown's Business Improvement District and Senior Corp of Retired Executives. This group voluntarily organized to research and improve the local dining options throughout the county.

“We gathered in response to two recent reports that suggest area residents spend more than $12.4 million annually to eat and drink at restaurants beyond our County borders,” stated Julie Pacatte, Batavia Development Corporation. “We want to understand why people leave the County to dine-out. Ultimately, we want to do what we can to try to ensure more dining dollars stay local.”

The Restaurant Creativity Advocates began discussion early February 2013. Since then, they conducted their own local restaurant assessment facilitated by Lina LaMattina, director of The BEST Center.

“We began by asking team members to finish the open-ended question, wouldn’t it be great if...,” LaMattina said. “Allowing this cross-functional team to begin to consider the possibilities open to the County helped the group to generate some big picture thinking, think creatively, and develop the foundation for some real conversation with stakeholders without giving way to the  traditional stumbling blocks typically encountered when dealing with significant challenges,” LaMattina added.

The group categorized more than 100 committee responses and found that six areas of focus could potentially improve the local restaurant scene. Upon completion of the customer survey, the group will share all results with the local restaurateurs in hopes of devising an action plan to reduce the sales leakage.

The restaurant customer survey is brief, but it does end with the same valuable question “Wouldn’t it be great if…?”

The Chamber of Commerce has mailed a separate restaurant owner survey directly to their listing of 126 existing restaurants in Genesee County. That survey will also be complete at the end of next week.

The way Bob Miller sees it, before long, if you want to learn to fly, you will need to go to Pennsylvania or Ohio because there will be no flight schools left in New York.

"The state is holding all the cards on this," Miller told members of the Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday.

Within the past year, NYS Taxation and Finance has started auditing the owners of airplanes that are used as rentals for flight school students.

The state is demanding payment, Miller said, of taxes that were once exempt.

According to Miller, he can't legally charge students tax for their flight hours, but when private plane owners rent their planes to flight schools, the state is now demanding the owners pay sales tax on those fees.

As a result private plane owners who have been audited by the state will no longer rent their planes to flight schools.

More than two months ago, plane owners in Lancaster were audited and Miller was forced to close his school there. Now the state has gone after Batavia plane owners and he must shut down his aviation school here.

"It's not a new law," Miller said. "It's a new interpretation. The executive branch is holding all of the private airplane owners hostage to their interpretation of the code."

According to Miller, this hasn't been an issue in New York for 40 years, and certainly not during the 20 years he's been involved in aviation instruction.

"The state is so desperate for sales tax revenue they're going after everything," Miller said.

Currently, according to Miller, investors buy airplanes without sales tax if they are renting the planes to flight schools. If the planes are rented to private pilots who are not students, then the owners must pay sales tax; if the owners take the planes on a flight for their own private use, they must pay a portion of sales tax for the usage, but for 40 years, there's been no sales tax, he said, on student rentals through flight schools.

The state is requiring plane owners to pay for past unpaid sales taxes going up to five years back.

As a result, Miller said, the plane owners are just ceasing rental services to aviation schools in the state.

Miller has a lease for hangars and office space in the Genesee County Airport through 2015 and he's being asked to be let out of the lease because he's now out of business as a result of the state's actions.

Highway Superintendent Tim Hens recommended the Legislature require Miller to pay rent for 90 days, giving the county time to find a new tenant.

Hens said he isn't worried about filling the hangars -- there's a waiting list for hangar space, but he isn't sure the office space in the terminal will be filled, especially since it will be hard to find another filght school under the current circumstances.

The county will lose about $2,400 a month $2,700 per year in revenue with the flight school closed, due to a decrease in aviation fuel sales.

Press release:

Darien Lake confirms that its amusement park and water park were closed for approximately two hours today, after the water supply was accidentally cut off.

Monroe County Water Authority had been conducting routine maintenance nearby, which adversely affected the park’s water supply at 11:30 a.m. During the outage, Darien Lake’s bathrooms, food service, and water park were affected.

Darien Lake management closed the park at noon for guest safety. The park’s maintenance crews restored service before 1 p.m., and the park was reopened by 2 p.m.

UMMC welcomed a group of new residents to their team today. All six are training as doctors of osteopathic medicine. They are, from left, Tobin Carson, Adia Taylor, Cedric McKinney, Imeh Sampson Jr., J. Francis Asuquo and Mithun Daniel.

The state's red "SEIZED" signs are out of the windows at Molasses Hill Bulk Foods on Ellicott Street in Batavia and a new sign is taped to the front door: "Closed til 9:00 AM Wed 6/26."

Previously: Molasses Hill closed, seized by state

Genesee County's unemployment rate for May 2013 is the lowest it's been in 57 months, according to data released today by the NYS Department of Labor.

At 6.2 percent, it hasn't been lower since Dec. 2008, when the rate was 5.6 percent.

The previous month, April, Genesee County's rate was reported at 7.1 and a year ago May it was reported at 7.4 percent.

In the prior 18 months, the county's unemployment rate dipped below 7 percent only once.

The lowest rate for the county since the turn of the century was 3.2 percent in October 2000.

The state's unemployment rate is said to be 7.4 percent, down from a year ago but up 1/10th of a percent since April 2013.

The nation's rate is 7.3 percent.

Orleans County is 8.4 percent, Wyoming 7.1 and Livingston 7.1.

The Rochester area's rate is reported at 7.0 and Buffalo at 7.3.

Molasses Hill Bulk Foods on Ellicott Street, Batavia, is closed after the store was seized by an agent of NYS Taxation and Finance this morning.

Neal Harder, husband of owner Shannon Harder, said he and his wife are trying to negotiate with Taxation and Finance to be able to reopen today with an agreement to pay taxes owed by July 15.

He said he felt the sudden closure was the result of a disagreement between his wife and the agent.

Press release:

Assemblyman Steve Hawley (R,C,I-Batavia) recently lamented the loss of 174 jobs through the announced closure of the Bernz-O-Matic manufacturing plant in Medina. Worthington Industries, owners of Bernz-O-Matic, indicated that local employees would have the opportunity to transfer to the company’s plant in Wisconsin, which served as little consolation for proud local residents, Hawley noted. The assemblyman has reached out to Worthington Industries Chairman and CEO John McConnell to discuss the best ways to mitigate the economic damage in Medina.

“The news of Bernz-O-Matic’s closure is heartbreaking for the people employed at the plant, their families and all of us across Orleans County,” Hawley said. “Our immediate priority must be to help those affected find new work here in our community as quickly as humanly possible. I offer my deepest regrets to all of Bernz-O-Matic’s employees and pledge my full support in working through this difficult time.”

Coming on the heels of Chase Bank’s call center closure, Hawley lamented the job-killing policies forced on Western New York by out-of-touch lawmakers at the Capitol.

“How many more local jobs must be lost; how many more local families have to suffer before the Capitol lawmakers see the destruction that New York’s anti-business climate causes?” Hawley asked. “Runaway taxes, overregulation and regressive policies have run countless job creators out of our community, yet legislative leaders continue to repeat the mistakes of old that have left our hardworking families out in the cold. It’s time to open our eyes and change our courses before Western New York’s families are forced to watch another company take their jobs across state lines.”

Steve Carr, a popular local businessman who managed the C.L. Carr store in its final years, passed away Friday after suffering a heart attack while swimming at Stafford Country Club.

Carr was 66.

Funeral arrangements are pending, but will be handled by H.E. Turner.

His death comes as a shock to many people who remember him as a warm and fun person.

Councilwoman Rose Mary Christian remembers that Carr helped her get reestablished in Batavia after she returned to her native city 40 years ago.

"He was a generous person," Christian said.

Peter Mumford, Carr's cousin, said they were both born in 1947 and grew up together and remained close.

"He was always trying to help people out," Mumford said. "I always considered him a bon vivant. He liked to travel. He liked people a lot. He liked music, especially blues."

Carr was the grandson of C.L. Carr who opened a retail store in Batavia in 1917. That store would become one of the mainstays in the city until about 2001, but changes in the local market made it difficult for the family to keep the large department store open.

Carr was the majority shareholder, but members of the Carr, Minor and Mumford families also held shares, Mumford said.

A member of Rotary, Carr remained active in the community after the store closed.

The winner of our recently completed Facebook Like contest sponsored by Council Opticians of Batavia is Cara Grosshans.

Cara wins a Coach handbag.

If you would like to get more fans for your business page on Facebook, contact Lisa Ace at (585) 250-4118 to find out more.