CONKLIN — Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. (NYSE: DKS) plans to invest $100 million to build a regional distribution facility at the Broome County Corporate Park in the town of Conklin. The investment will create 466 full-time jobs over the next five years in the Southern Tier, the office of Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a […]
CONKLIN — Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. (NYSE: DKS) plans to invest $100 million to build a regional distribution facility at the Broome County Corporate Park in the town of Conklin.
The investment will create 466 full-time jobs over the next five years in the Southern Tier, the office of Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a news release.
Cuomo announced the project during a July 19 visit to SUNY Binghamton’s Innovative Technologies Complex in Vestal, according to his office.
Construction on the 650,000-square-foot facility will begin next month with completion scheduled in early 2018.
The company’s new distribution center “strengthens” its roots in Binghamton, where it was founded seven decades ago, according to Cuomo’s office.
Dick’s Sporting Goods is now headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The Conklin project is also “aligned” with Southern Tier Soaring, the region’s “blueprint” for economic growth, Cuomo contends.
“We started the company here and ultimately chose Conklin for the business-friendly environment, the quality and reliability of the workforce and the opportunity to bring jobs to our hometown,” Edward Stack, chairman and CEO of Dick’s Sporting Goods, said in Cuomo’s release.
Both New York and Broome County together have offered a “competitive” incentive package in their effort to attract Dick’s Sporting Goods’ major distribution facility and the 466 new jobs, according to Cuomo’s office.
New York’s performance-based incentives are valued at up to $12 million, including funds from the region’s Upstate Revitalization Initiative and Excelsior jobs program tax credits.
Additionally, the Broome County Industrial Development Agency is “slated to approve tax abatements in the immediate future,” Cuomo’s office said.
In addition, NYSEG is committing up to $540,000 in economic-development grant assistance for electric and natural-gas infrastructure and energy-efficiency improvements.
Dick’s Sporting Goods’ new regional distribution facility in Broome County will be its fifth nationally. The company will build the center on a 123 acre site. It will service more than 200 retail stores throughout the Northeast.
Besides facility construction, related site work will include wetland mitigation, grading and clearing, and extension of utilities.
Additionally, Dick’s is pursuing Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification for the facility.
The company plans to incorporate sustainable components such as “high-efficiency” lighting and a heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning system; recycled and “environmentally friendly” construction materials; along with energy-management systems and recycling programs for corrugate and plastics.
Dick’s expansion in the Southern Tier “strengthens its roots” in an area where the Stack family founded the company in 1948.
Richard (Dick) Stack started with a $300 loan from his grandmother’s cookie jar, according to Cuomo’s office.
Using that money, Dick opened a bait-and-tackle shop on Court Street in Binghamton.
By 1958, he had expanded the product line to include “much” of what is available in the more than 645 Dick’s Sporting Goods stores across the nation today.
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com