LOWVILLE — Lewis County Economic Development/Industrial Development Agency (IDA) plans to move into a building in Lowville that it bought last year and is currently developing to spur business growth in Lewis County. The move is slated for April, says Brittany Davis, marketing specialist at Lewis County Economic Development. “If we’re managing the building, we […]
LOWVILLE — Lewis County Economic Development/Industrial Development Agency (IDA) plans to move into a building in Lowville that it bought last year and is currently developing to spur business growth in Lewis County.
The move is slated for April, says Brittany Davis, marketing specialist at Lewis County Economic Development.
“If we’re managing the building, we want to be up there as soon as possible. It’s just easier,” says Davis.
The organization is currently located at 7642 N. State St. in Lowville. The Lewis County Chamber of Commerce will also move into the coworking/shared office space of the newly purchased building that the organizations are calling the Center for Business.
The organizations want to make it a “one-stop shop,” so they can “manage the coworking space, manage the building,” says Cheyenne Steria, project manager for the Center for Business.
Steria also serves as a finance technical specialist for the Lewis County IDA. Both Davis and Steria spoke to CNYBJ on March 4.
Occupancy
Lewis County Economic Development/IDA is developing the building — the former Climax Manufacturing Co. facility at 7840 State Route 26 — into a multi-tenant, mixed-use facility.
The Center for Business already has two tenants leasing nearly 90,000 square feet of the available 145,000 square feet of open manufacturing space, per a news release about the Center for Business.
So far, Hanover, Pennsylvania–based Ox Industries (formally Carthage Specialty Paperboard) is leasing 80,000 square feet of manufacturing space for warehousing. And, NRG Group, a telecommunications contractor formerly located in New Bremen in Lewis County, is leasing 8,000 square feet of space.
Together, the two firms currently have about 20 employees working at the Center for Business.
The facility also has 15,000 square feet of office space, which will soon include Lewis County Economic Development/IDA and the Lewis County Chamber of Commerce.
A portion of the office space will serve as shared coworking space, where business owners, entrepreneurs or remote workers can rent working space and use amenities such as high-speed internet and printer services “on a daily, monthly or yearly basis,” per the release.
Lewis County Economic Development can tailor the building for manufacturing, light industry, and coworking/shared office space for businesses and nonprofit organizations in Lewis County.
“There are a variety of prices and we’re hoping to meet a lot of different needs,” Steria says, when asked renting space in the Center for Business.
Tenants lease their space with the IDA, she adds.
Building purchase
Lewis County Economic Development/IDA bought the former Climax Manufacturing Co. facility from Carthage Specialty Paperboard in a deal that closed Oct. 17, 2018. The purchase price was $800,000, says Steria.
Carthage Specialty Paperboard’s parent DeltaPoint Capital Management, a private-equity firm in Rochester, also owned Climax Manufacturing, Steria confirms, when asked about the building’s recent history.
Carthage Specialty Paperboard had filed for bankruptcy and was later purchased by Ox Industries about a week after the building purchase closed last October, according to Steria.
Lewis County Economic Development/IDA used some of its economic-development fund and grant financing to make the purchase, says Steria.
The state had awarded the organization grant funding through the North Country Regional Economic Development Council for its efforts to establish a commerce park on property near the building it bought for the Center for Business, she notes.
“We transferred that grant for the purchase of this building,” Steria adds.
Reason for purchase
Lewis County Economic Development/IDA had been focused on establishing a commerce park on site, near the Center for Business, says Davis.
“But our IDA board really pushed the organization to look into the purchase of the building because we didn’t want the building to just be left empty,” she adds.
The agency eventually decided that it wanted to create a multi-tenant facility because it understands how “difficult it would be” to just bring in one company with 100 jobs.
It pursued a plan to create a multi-tenant facility where it could section off the building for businesses that could bring five or 10 jobs and occupy up to 12,000 square feet at a time.
“That’s something that’s a little bit more attainable for us,” says Davis.
The commerce park that the organization had been thinking about is still a possibility in the future, according to Steria.