Business

It's a complaint I heard from Downtown Batavia merchants last winter, and a sore subject that came up at a BID meeting over the winter -- snow piled up along Main Street. Now merchants are grumbling again after the first big snow storm this year.

The big mounds make it exceptionally hard for customers to come downtown, park on Main and walk into a business. Generally, when the snow is piled up like it is, only the driver can get out of a car and then must walk a half a block or more in traffic to the nearest opening to gain access to the sidewalk -- and then walk back to the business he or she wants to enter.

Ken Mistler, who is opening a gym at Main and Jackson in a few weeks, is also concerned about the practice of city public works crews piling up snow right in the middle of the parking lot behind his building. The large pile can take up as many as 20 parking spaces, and with several popular businesses on Jackson, that doesn't leave much parking room left with convenient access to those businesses and the gym.

He said he isn't worried about his customers walking some distance to get into the gym -- they are, after all, into fitness -- but he is concerned that the additional parking his gym requires means that customers of the Jackson Street businesses will find it harder to park and face longer walks.

Those 20 or so spaces are much needed, Mistler said, so he suggested the snow be piled behind the empty Latina's market, not in the middle of the most used parking area off Jackson.

City Manager Jason Molino said the city is constantly reviewing snow plowing and removal procedures, but removal is not a priority during a storm and can only be accomplished as manpower and equipment availability dictates.

"Our first priority, when we have a snow storm like yesterday, is to make sure the thoroughfares are clean, the major arteries in the city are clear, and then the side streets and then we get into snow removal," Molino said during an interview on Friday.

At the BID meeting this summer, Board President John Roche said downtown merchants need to be vocal about letting City Hall know that they want to see snow removal become more of a priority this year.

We'll see what happens.

It wasn't a Christmas card in the mail that put a bit bigger smile on Guy Clark Jr.'s face this morning -- it was a notification from Cub Cadet that Cedar Street Sales and Rentals has been named its 2009 Region 1 Dealer of the Year.

It's the first time Cedar Street has won the award and Clark couldn't wait to spread the news.

"I'm very excited," he said.

The award recognizes both the increased sales volume of Cub Cadet products at Cedar Street, but also the extra effort Clark puts into displaying and marketing Cub Cadet products.

One of the innovations Clark introduced that drew the attention of the Cleveland, Ohio-based company is a utility vehicle test track that Clark installed at his location.

Clark started selling Cub Cadet products in 2001.

“We are happy to present Guy Clark Jr. of Cedar Street Sales and Rental with the 2009 Retailer of the Year Award for the Northeast region,” said Tom Rossman, Cub Cadet director of sales, in a prepared statement. “What makes Cub Cadet such a great organization is having dedicated retailers, like Guy Clark, who embody the Cub Cadet brand in all aspects of their business. Guy’s progressive attitude and innovative ideas have helped Cedar Street Sales and Rentals evolve in a competitive market to continually meet the demands of their customers. In 2009, Cedar Street Sales and Rentals truly set itself apart from the competition.” 

Cub Cadet divides the United States into four sales regions, so Clark is one of only four dealers in the nation recognized by Cub Cadet in 2009.

Diane Paine was all smiles today during the grand opening of her new store at 315 Ellicott St. The store is called Firefly, which captures the spark and sparkle of the eclectic collection of accessories and jewelry (some of it handmade by Paine in the store).

The visitor information booth in the parking lot of the Holland Land Office Museum was broken into last night, according to Kelly Rapone, tourism marketing director for the Genesee County Chamber of Commerce.

Somebody broke a lock to gain entry and then made himself at home.

Nothing was stolen -- there's nothing inside to steal, unless you think you can resell travel brochures.

"We were grateful that it had not been vandalized as we had just refinished the inside this summer," Rapone said.

The lock has been replaced.

Rapone supplied the photo.

"We're not sure what he did with all the Windex!" she said. "That was half full when we locked it up in October."

This evening I wandered around downtown a bit and took some pictures of some of the businesses that have decorated for the holidays.

The motto of Feary-Cohen Realty  -- "Sold Mine, too" -- took on a new meaning in recent weeks when owner Howard Cohen sold his office building, sold his home and closed the business so he and his wife could move to Hilton Head, South Carolina.

Cohen, a lifelong Batavian, said he and his wife vacationed in South Carolina and have talked for years about moving down there. When the opportunity came along to actually make the move, the pieces just fell into place too easily to pass up the chance.

"We're very excited," Cohen said. "I'm of course doing real estate down here. I'm not retired by any means. I'm associated with a very good firm, so I'm very happy."

It's one of the rare times in Cohen's life he hasn't been self-employed. Besides owning Feary-Cohen for the past 13 years, Cohen previously owned Triangle Liquor on East Main Street and Minor's Appliance on Court Street.

As for this move, Cohen said that with his daughter ready to start high school (two sons are in already college) and an unexpected buyer for his house, it seemed like the timing was right.

"It was just another sign (selling the house) that it was just time to do it," Cohen said. "If we waited another six or seven years, I'd be 67 or 68 and we would probably never leave then."  

He added at the end of the conversation, "Life is short, so you want to enjoy it to its fullest."

Another business owner purchased Cohen's office building, but is not ready announce his plans.

A landlord in Stafford is receiving a $36,837 tax exemption to expand the building on its land, the GCEDC announced today.

BGW Properties, LLC, owns the land and building that is currently leased by Fastenall, a wholesale distribution company.

Fastenall has run out of space at the facility and was looking for a new location. The tax break will help BGW add 4,000 square feet to the building and keep Fastenall as a tenant.

The exemptions come in the form $5,600 in sales tax relief, a $1,375 mortgage tax exemption and a $29,862 property tax exemption.

BGW is expected to invest $110,000 in the expansion, and GCEDC estimates that the multiplier effect for the local economy is $47 for each dollar of tax relief.

Come on downtown and check out all of the Christmas displays in store windows, such as this one at Adam Miller Toy and Bicycles. The displays will be judged tonight as part of a contest tied into Christmas in the City.

The annual event promises to be a good deal of fun. Dozens of businesses are participating, plus there will be live music, horse-drawn wagon rides, Santa and food (Steve Mullen will be roasting chestnuts outside Larry's Steakhouse).

Stop into one of the local businesses and pick up a program for the event, which contains a schedule of entertainment as well as coupons for 14 businesses.

Walk into Batavia Downs and you don't necessarily hear the cash register ringing, but you can certainly hear the cha-ching of video gaming.

And it's a good thing. It turns out that harness racing may be fun to watch, but it isn't profitable for the race track.

The historic facility is again projecting a loss for living racing, but will more than make up for it off of slot machines.

"I think everybody in the harness racing industry statewide understands that without video gaming, harness racing would no longer be in existence," Michael Kane, vice-president of Western OTB, told WBTA (mp3). "You need harness racing to have video gaming. It's a cost of doing business."

Kane added, though, that Western OTB works very hard to reduce its losses in racing.

Harness racing is expected to lose $1.3 million dollars, but overall Western OTB is projected to turn $5 millions in profits, thanks to those dinging, donging, clanging, light-flashing machines on the second floor of the Down's building.

A year ago today, a large black plume of smoke cast a dark shadow over the City of Batavia, alerting many residents to the fact that there was a big fire some place. It turned out to be at My "T" Acres/Call Farms, on Lewiston Road in the Town of Batavia.

Today, the large barn that was destroyed is being rebuilt.  Phil Call said it's been a challenging process to get the barn rebuilt, but that it made the most sense to rebuild on the same location on the original foundation. Otherwise, he said, it isn't the Calls way to make a big deal out of such a thing and declined a more detailed interview.  He said they were just glad to be rebuilding.

UPDATE: Nate Fix, a lieutenant in the Town of Batavia Fire Department, sent the following pictures he took the day of the fire.

With little fanfare -- only a small sign on the front door -- Ponderosa Steakhouse announced today that it is closing its Batavia location. The simple sign reads "This location has closed. We thank you for your patronage."  It then says that people with coupons can take them to one of Ponderosa's locations outside of the area.

I'm hanging out at The Daily Grind, Main and Jackson, for a little while this morning.  I'll be doing a couple of posts from there -- including the Deal of the Day -- so if you're in the area, feel free to stop in and say hello.

Rob Crede, manager of The Daily Grind on Main and Jackson in Batavia, serves Jim Kujawski on the first day of business for the new coffee shop and juice bar.

Owner Ken Mistler (pictured below) has been preparing for the opening for months, but characterizes this week's opening as "soft" so any kinks can be worked out.  But soft or not, Rob served a steady stream of customers this morning.

Meanwhile, the gym, Next Level, adjacent to the coffee shop, is moving closer to opening in a few weeks.  More pictures follow the jump.

Mistler stands in front of an in-progress mural by Vinny Del Plato at the top of the stairway leading to the lower-level workout area and men's locker room.

The kids' room, with mural painted by Karen Reisdorf.

While a lot people shop at the big-box stores for brand names, others choose to support local businesses because they offer unique items and provide good customer service.

Alexander's Molasses Hill Bulk Foods, located at the four corners on Main Street in Alexander, is a successful hometown business that has developed a loyal, local clientele.

Opened by sisters Lucinda and Meghann Morse in December of 2005, Molasses Hill has prospered in a small town.

"Alexander is our hometown. We wanted to be close to home." said co-owner Lucinda Morse.

Though the store is small, it is packed to the brim with quality products. The front of the store carries their baking items and the back of the store is where they serve their well-known subs, salads and soups.

The store carries a wide variety of cooking items, too.

"We have all the baking supplies, candies, spices, dried beans, jellies, soup mixes, and this time of the year we carry the seasoning for jerky." Morse said.

"I like that it's close and convenient," said Connie Bruggman, a longtime resident of Alexander.  "I go there for the bakery items. They have lots of special chocolate chips for cookies; the raspberry ones are really good."

Molasses Hill Bulk Foods is worth a trip.

"They're comparable for their quality, you get what you pay for. They buy bulk and break it down to offer their products for a cheaper price." Bruggman said. "I just think it's a nice addition to the town. It brings people into the village and gives the school kids somewhere to go."

Sen. Charles Schumer was in Batavia yesterday to tell local dairy farmers that he is working to bring in federal dollars to help their beleaguered industry.

But he also gave a pep talk for America. WBTA posted the audio (MP3).

Here’s the truth. People do’t like to hear it, but it’s the truth. For the last 15 years under Democratic and Republican presidents, here’s what America did: We consumed more than we produced. We borrowed more than we saved. We imported more than we exported.  We were the great production giant of the world. In the last 15 or 20 years, you know what we were? This big giant, big muscles, strong, astride the globe, stuffing our face with candy.

Schumer said Americans need to become a nation of producers again -- saving and exporting, rather than spending and importing.

But America has one advantage, Schumer said: there's no barrier to any person doing whatever he or she wants with his or her life.

We’ve gotten off track. We’ve gotten too fat. We can get back on track. Only America has the system that says, ‘I don’t care who you are, how much money you have, what your daddy did, or mom, you can achieve the stars if you work hard.' So the $64,000 question is, what are the policies that get us back and we’ll be giant again.

Photo courtesy WBTA.

I say it all the time -- if Western New York is going to turn itself around, to really spur a new era of job growth and economic vitality, it's going to take homegrown businesses leading the way. It's not going to happen by trying to recruit out-of-state industries into the region.

Daily Yonder has a post today that backs that supposition. It's about how North Carolina paid Dell a lot of money to locate a facility there, but now Dell is closing. Meanwhile, a locally grown company that got almost no government assistance is adding 600 jobs.

When are we going to halt public expenditures on the "buffalo hunt" for footloose industry and instead focus our resources and efforts on the sector that produces by far most of the jobs -- existing industry and homegrown business?

Note, that the author isn't against the kind of infrastructure development going on at the new agri-business park (though I know some of our conservative readers will take issue with the expenditure). He's talking about tax breaks and outright grants to bring in business.

The scholarly literature on incentives shows that they are a very poor investment of public resources. And, of course, the business sector has become expert at playing off one state against another in something akin to corporate extortion; and who can blame them?

Imagine if the South in general and North Carolina in particular had put all of the money spent on industrial recruitment into education, training and small business support. We would be watching even more Quintiles, Cree, PPD, Southern Seasons, Performance Bicycle and other homegrown entrepreneurial success stories all across North Carolina. And, although there are no silver bullets in economic development, homegrown businesses are more likely to stay put, invest in the local community, provide stable civic leadership and keep the control and wealth local instead of away at some remote corporate headquarters.

I continue to maintain that we need to find some way to spur more entrepreneurship, to encourage people already living and working here to take their great ideas and turn them into businesses. If we do invest (as taxpayers) in job growth (not saying we should, just if we do), it should be in businesses started locally, not in recruitment.

Genesee County's jobless rate continues to be a bit better than New York as a whole, but that's only looking at the glass as half full.

From the half-empty perspective, there were more people unemployed in Genesee County in October than there were in September.

The county's rate inched up from 7.1 percent to 7.3 percent.  (full data from the state here)

Meanwhile, the state rate climbed to 9 percent.

The even less rosy number is the jump over the past year for Genesee County from a 5.2 percent unemployment rate to the current 7.3 percent.

However slowly and incrementally, the ball is rolling forward on the Masse Gateway Project.

Tonight, property owner Tom Mancuso presented preliminary development plans to the Batavia Planning Board. The plans, sort of a rough sketch of the project, are the first step in an approval process that will involve a few agency reviews and more than a couple of public meetings.

Tonight's meeting was an opportunity for the planning board to see the plans for the first time and offer feedback, before Mancuso invests fully in project planning.

"We’re trying to move forward as quickly as possible, so the first step was to come here and get a review," Mancuso said after the meeting. "We need to do that before we do an application for a demolition permit, which we would like to do as soon as possible. We’re just finalizing construction funding. And just trying to get the appropriate approval so we can move forward as quickly as possible."

Mancuso said he hopes to have a demolition permit within 30 to 60 days.

The Masse Gateway Project will open up the former Masse/Harvester manufacturing plant to an entrance off Masse Place. The initial opening and refurbishing of the buildings around the entrance will potentially bring new business tenants into that part of the facility and help spur further redevelopment of the property into a mix-used business park.

The project is funded in part by a $1.5 million RestoreNY grant.

Mancuso said there is a lot of interest in the space from prospective tenants, but they do want to know when space will be available.

"The activity’s been good," Mancuso said. "It’s just that the hold-up that will continue to be an issue, is the delivery date. People need to know when we can get them in there and we can’t tell them that right now. There’s plenty of interest. It’s going to be a neat looking space. We’re going to be stymied until we can give them a delivery date."

The project plans will need to be reviewed at a city and county level for environmental impact, drainage, parking, Main-Street access, signage, use of utilities, lighting and code compliance. There are unlikely to be many applications for variances from current code, Planning Board Chairman Ed Jones noted, but he also suggested the City Council may want to take an active role in the environmental review process.

"Given that the source of the funding is coming from the city, this may very well be something that the City Council may want to take on as lead-agency status," Jones said. "This is going to be a high visibility project."