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New York gets $6.2 million federal grant for training programs for the unemployed
The federal government has awarded New York a grant of nearly $6.2 million to help the unemployed re-enter the workforce. The New York State Department
Scotsman Media Group to close printing operations, eliminating 90 jobs
SYRACUSE — The Scotsman Press, Inc., which does business as Scotsman Media Group, today announced plans to close its printing operations in Syracuse and Chenango
Upstate Medical University names Lotkowictz physical plant director
SYRACUSE — Upstate Medical University announced it has appointed Robert Lotkowictz, director of physical plant, succeeding Gary Kittel, who has retired. As director of physical
Renovated DeWitt Town Center is attracting new tenants
DeWITT — Following eight months of renovation work at the DeWitt Town Center, the 184,000-square-foot shopping center at 3179 Erie Blvd. East is adding six new tenants. That’s according to the Syracuse–based Icon Companies, a commercial real-estate firm, which organized an afternoon press event June 24 to mark the end of the renovation work. The
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DeWITT — Following eight months of renovation work at the DeWitt Town Center, the 184,000-square-foot shopping center at 3179 Erie Blvd. East is adding six new tenants.
That’s according to the Syracuse–based Icon Companies, a commercial real-estate firm, which organized an afternoon press event June 24 to mark the end of the renovation work.
The event included a ribbon cutting for the newly renovated DeWitt Town Center and the Time Warner Cable office, the Icon Companies said.
Besides Time Warner Cable, the other new tenants, which will open for business “soon,” include Sky Zone Indoor Trampoline Park; Matthews Salon Spa; Pella, a window and door retailer; and Jreck Subs, a sandwich restaurant chain.
Pella is moving its window and door showroom from its current location at 2743 Erie Blvd. East in Syracuse, according to Graziano Zazzara, Jr., president and principal broker at the Icon Companies.
Another new tenant, Harbor Freight Tools, has opened for business.
Existing tenants include Five Guys Burgers and Fries; Taco Bell; and Empire Buffett; along with Oreck, which sells vacuum cleaners and other cleaning supplies; and the DeWitt location of Irving, Texas–based OrthoSynetics, a dental and orthodontic practice-management firm.
The tenants, including Time Warner Cable Business Class, collectively employ a total of about 600 people, according to the media invitation for the event.
For example, the Time Warner project will create 95 new jobs over the next four years and moves 171 existing Time Warner Cable Business Class jobs into the new facility, the company said last November.
That space had long been vacant.
It’s taken four-and-a-half years of waiting for the “right tenant mix,” Graziano Zazzara, Sr., a principal in DeWitt Town Center, Inc., the entity that owns the DeWitt Town Center, said in speaking with reporters at the press event.
“Thanks to New York state. They really gave Time Warner a great incentive to build, and fortunately it was here in DeWitt and they chose our center, which really was the catalyst to make this thing happen,” Zazzara said.
New entrance
The DeWitt Town Center also includes a new entrance “Now you can see it coming off the road, where before, it was really … a screwed-up entranceway,” he said.
The parking lot also has new pavement and new lights, he added.
“If you get a national tenant [Time Warner Cable]… something strong, something clean, it draws better tenants … and we had to wait for that,” Zazzara, Sr. added.
The Zazzaras opened Paradise Market, a flea market, when they acquired the property in January 2010.
The flea market allowed them to “to turn the lights [on],” but it wasn’t their long-term goal for the facility. Paradise Market closed in 2011 following a year-and-a-half of operation, Zazzara, Sr. said.
“The problem with it … no national tenant would go into a plaza that had a flea market,” he says.
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com
OCC’s Academic II building wins national award for its “unique” design
ONONDAGA — Onondaga Community College (OCC) today announced that its newest building, Academic II, has won a national award for its “unique” design. The structure
Skaneateles Suites adapts to customer needs, plans for continued success
SKANEATELES — Nearly 15 years ago, Curt and Toni Feldmann drove by an old motel with a “For Sale” sign. Even though neither had any hospitality experience — Toni was a controller/accountant who lost her job in a corporate buyout while her husband Curt sold hardware — the couple took the plunge and bought the
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SKANEATELES — Nearly 15 years ago, Curt and Toni Feldmann drove by an old motel with a “For Sale” sign. Even though neither had any hospitality experience — Toni was a controller/accountant who lost her job in a corporate buyout while her husband Curt sold hardware — the couple took the plunge and bought the former Anchor Motel.
Almost 15 years later, the Feldmanns are now headed toward their November anniversary of purchasing the motel, which they remodeled extensively and renamed Skaneateles Suites & Boutique Hotel (www.skaneatelessuites.com). Their properties include the Skaneateles Boutique Hotel, located on Fennell Street, and Skaneateles Suites, located 2 miles west of the village on Route 20. The suites are the former bungalows of the Anchor Motel, now remodeled and featuring amenities such as patios and Jacuzzis. The property also includes a house that sleeps eight and an apartment suite.
After purchasing the motel, the Feldmanns had a vision of how they wanted things to be, but learned quickly they needed to be flexible, Curt Feldmann, vice president of guest relations, says in an email. “Toni and I worked hard on writing our business plan, but the customers didn’t read it,” he says. “The customers kept wanting what they wanted and not what we planned. So, we changed what we had told the bank and gave the customers what they wanted.”
They hired architect Robert Eggleston to help remodel the old Anchor Motel, which they described as “functionally obsolete.” The six bungalows previously held two units each. Each unit was a 150-square-foot room, but the Feldmanns remodeled to combine the units so now each bungalow offers a 300-square-foot suite. Other work included adding reverse gables as well as private patios for architectural and guest appeal, as well as amenities such as cable TV, Wi-Fi, premium bedding, kitchenettes, and Jacuzzi tubs in a number of the rooms.
“We intuitively knew something about the property was alluring,” Curt Feldmann says. “But it took our architect Bob Eggleston to notice that the height of the buildings was 6 inches too short, and that was what created the four-fifths scale size that Bob based everything on. That’s what gives the property great turn-your-head drive-by appeal.”
Over their years of ownership, the Feldmanns have hosted nearly 30,000 guests, almost half of whom are repeat customers, and continue to work to provide guests the type of experience that keeps them coming back.
“Sales look strong as visitors appear to return to confidence in the economy,” Toni Feldmann, innkeeper, says of 2014’s outlook. New furniture, windows, and carpeting in the Skaneateles Boutique Hotel this year should help keep occupancy levels high, she adds.
Right now, the Feldmanns are starting their busy season, Curt Feldmann says. “Skaneateles is extremely seasonal, and it’s easy to achieve a 95 percent occupancy [rate] in the summer. In the off season, we aren’t afraid to lower rates and offer combinations of book-online discounts.”
He also credits the Skaneateles Suites 2013 Travelers’ Choice award from TripAdvisor, which noted the facility’s “friendly and charming” atmosphere, for helping draw guests.
“We take this very seriously and pay attention to customer reviews every day,” Curt Feldmann notes.
“We are a rare find,” Toni Feldmann says. “The rush to chain hotels is so people know what to expect. The Skaneateles Suites offers the quality of the chains with that extra something special.”
The Feldmanns also credit their staff, which they call the “Dreams Team,” for their success. “The Suite Dreams Team — Guest Services Manager Terri Chapman, Reservations Manager Julie Hunt, and Property Manager Keia Endres — is the reason we get rave reviews,” Curt Feldmann says. Those year-round employees are joined by four seasonal employees in the summer months to help make sure every guest enjoys her stay.
Looking ahead, the Feldmanns say their plan for success will be to continue what they are doing by keeping the facilities fresh and special, giving guests a high-quality lodging experience.
Contact The Business Journal News Network at news@cnybj.com
SU group studies Carrier Dome backup options in case of roof failure
SYRACUSE — Two members of a workgroup that Syracuse University (SU) Chancellor Kent Syverud assembled to review options for a “Carrier Dome Backup Plan” provided an overview of its findings on June 19. Rick Burton, a sports-management professor and workgroup chair, and John Yinger, a trustee professor of public administration and economics, represented the group
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SYRACUSE — Two members of a workgroup that Syracuse University (SU) Chancellor Kent Syverud assembled to review options for a “Carrier Dome Backup Plan” provided an overview of its findings on June 19.
Rick Burton, a sports-management professor and workgroup chair, and John Yinger, a trustee professor of public administration and economics, represented the group in speaking to the assembled media in the school’s Schine Student Center.
Syverud in late February appointed a five-person committee to conduct an analysis of the Carrier Dome and consider the many factors involved should the facility be rendered unusable for short- to long-term periods.
Besides Burton and Yinger, the group also included Jeff Rubin, associate professor of practice in the School of Information Studies; John Sardino, associate chief of the Department of Public Safety; and Bridget Yule, director of student centers and programming services in the Division of Student Affairs, according to SU.
He asked the group to develop a contingency plan that would allow the university to “quickly” respond should the need arise, quantify the costs involved, and better understand the potential negative economic impact to the region.
Not related to new stadium talk
When asked if the group’s work was related to the possibility of a new stadium to replace the Carrier Dome that made headlines earlier this year, Burton replied,
“No sense of that at all.”
“We received the request to put together this report for him and there was no indication that it was tied to anything other than [Syverud] fact finding as the new chancellor,” Burton added.
Syverud’s request, in Burton’s mind, was “really very simple and very straightforward.”
“It was a fact-finding mission on his behalf as the new chancellor to look at the ways in which … the Carrier Dome roof could fail, what our backup plan would be were the Dome to be made inoperable,” Burton said in his remarks to the media.
Economic impact
If SU rendered the Dome unavailable for a single men’s basketball game against a top opponent, and the game was played outside of Central New York, the loss of income would total as much as $2.6 million and the region would lose as much as $8.3 million in economic activity, according to the group’s findings.
The group had “good information” on the sales in the Dome at a game, where people come from, and the numbers attending a given game, Yinger said.
“If you take a game of 30,000 or 35,000 people and you take it out of the Syracuse economy and you put it somewhere else, well then, there’s not a flow into the Syracuse economy and some of the people who would spend their money in Syracuse, otherwise, now spend it somewhere else. We try to account for those things,” he added.
The group determined that SU will “likely” need to replace the current roof on the Carrier Dome in the next seven to 10 years at a cost that would approach $25 million.
That cost figure would include likely improvements to the lighting and audio system.
The current roof covers about six-and-a-half acres, Burton said, which does require maintenance in the event of a major snow storm.
“You’ve got to undertake or consider a controlled deflation of the roof just because of the weight that’s sitting on the roof of the Dome,” he added.
Besides any problems with the roof, the university could render the Carrier Dome inoperable in a power failure, Burton said.
The group also considered how a similar scenario would impact a full home football schedule, with games scheduled outside the Central New York region.
Under such a circumstance, the region would lose economic activity totaling in a range between $23 million and $44 million, with the loss of income ranging from $7 million to $14 million, according to the memo.
The group noted that Central New York doesn’t have another facility that could accommodate the 30,000-plus attendance for an SU football game. The closest location would be Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park, near Buffalo, Burton said.
“On all of the contingencies, it’s a function of whether or not they’re available,” he added.
When considering the SU men’s basketball program, the group noted the program has more than 24,000 season-ticket holders.
“If the Dome was unavailable, there’s really no place in New York state or even really in the East that you could move the game to and accommodate that entire 24,000 season-ticket holder base,” Burton said.
No existing NBA arena has the capacity to seat that many spectators, he added.
Details on the group’s work first surfaced as part of a memo that Syverud distributed to the university community in May 30.
The school also posted the memo to Syverud’s blog, which is part of the SU website.
“We took this challenge very seriously, but our purpose was solely to collect facts that we thought would be relevant to the chancellor and his responsibilities for this university,” Burton said.
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com
New York’s unemployment claims fall to lowest level of the year
The number of people filing initial applications for unemployment benefits in New York state tumbled by more than 11 percent to 16,201 in the week
Image Press buys Syracuse Signage
CICERO — On May 7, Richard Hubeny, president of Syracuse Signage, Inc., inked a deal with Chris Arnone, the president of Image Press, to sell the assets of Syracuse Signage. The sale of the operating company’s assets was an all-cash deal. It did not include Hubeny’s 7,200-square-foot building located at 220 Commerce Blvd. in the
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CICERO — On May 7, Richard Hubeny, president of Syracuse Signage, Inc., inked a deal with Chris Arnone, the president of Image Press, to sell the assets of Syracuse Signage.
The sale of the operating company’s assets was an all-cash deal. It did not include Hubeny’s 7,200-square-foot building located at 220 Commerce Blvd. in the town of Salina, which is valued at $150,000, according to county tax records. Image Press committed to a one-month rental of Hubeny’s building to allow for the transfer of the assets to Image Press’s 35,000-square-foot facility in Cicero. One of the five employees who worked at Syracuse Signage is now employed at Image Press. Hubeny was the sole stockholder of his company.
Hubeny came to Syracuse in 1970 to work for Sweet Outdoor Advertising. In 1980, he bought the Central New York Division of Sweet, which he then sold in 1986 to Penn Advertising. Penn retained Hubeny as the area general manager. In 1988, Hubeny acquired the sign division from Penn and incorporated Syracuse Signage. The company focused on commercial signage with 60 percent of the business originating with national sign companies requiring installation work and the other 40 percent with local companies. Hubeny says he has not determined his future plans.
In addition to owning Sweet and Syracuse Signage, he also owned two Cookie Jar locations and was a partner in other local businesses. Hubeny is a past president of Sales and Marketing Executives of Central New York, the founder of the original Tip Club of Central New York, a past-president of Liverpool Dollars for Scholars, and the former chair of the North Area YMCA building-fund drive.
Image Press was founded in Syracuse more than 20 years ago as a company specializing in pre-press file preparation, image enhancement, and color correction. In 1998, the company transitioned to creating large-format digital printing. Today, Image Press’s graphics appear as signs, trade-show exhibits, retail displays, posters, and vehicle wraps.
Despite several attempts, The Business Journal News Network was not able to obtain an interview with Arnone.
Contact Poltenson at npoltenson@cnybj.com
Rochester man leads travelers along his New York Golf Trail
Rod Christian loves golf, and he especially loves playing golf at courses around New York state. He also wants others to enjoy the same experience and will provide the help in organizing the trip. Christian operates the New York Golf Trail, a business based at his home in Rochester, he says. “Considering the quality of
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Rod Christian loves golf, and he especially loves playing golf at courses around New York state.
He also wants others to enjoy the same experience and will provide the help in organizing the trip.
Christian operates the New York Golf Trail, a business based at his home in Rochester, he says.
“Considering the quality of New York golf, why not package and market and make it really easy for people to take a golf trip in New York state,” says Christian.
He founded the business in 2009 and is its lone employee, he says.
Christian spoke with the Business Journal News Network on June 24.
A native of Utica, Christian earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from St. John Fisher College, near Rochester, in 1984. Along the way, he would organize annual golf outings for himself and his college friends to enjoy.
“It was hard work, a lot of guess work in terms of choosing the courses and finding the right hotel,” as Christian recalls it.
Besides his bachelor’s degree, Christian later earned a master’s degree in public administration from the State University of New York at Brockport in 1991.
Beyond his work with the New York Golf Trail, Christian also works for the Arc of Monroe County as director of donor relations. The organization provides programs and services for people with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities and their families, according to its website — similar to the Arc of Onondaga and Arc, Oneida Lewis Chapter in our area.
Christian has worked in fundraising for 25 years, including the last five years at the Arc, he says.
But he’s also a golf enthusiast who remembers his golfing trips with his college friends.
“I saw this opportunity [New York Golf Trail], pursued it on the side, [and it’s] grown pretty steadily over the past five years,” says Christian.
Family and friends provided encouragement as Christian launched the venture in early 2009. His brother, Scott Christian, is a golf-course superintendent at Valley View Golf Course in Utica, and his nephew, Tim Christian, is the golf-course superintendent at Teugega Country Club in Rome, according to Rod Christian.
Even though the local golf season primarily runs from April through October, the New York Golf Trail stays “fairly busy” year round booking trips during the winter months, Christian says.
He has scaled back his hours in his fundraising work during the golf season, he says.
“I never expected to be running a travel agency,” he says. “Sometimes life takes unexpected turns.”
Process and partnerships
Golf enthusiasts can visit the website, www.nygolftrail.com, to begin the planning process, Christian says.
“It’s really the easiest place to get a sense for the scope of what we offer,” he says.
Website visitors can choose which New York region is their destination. The regions include Central New York, Finger Lakes, Cooperstown, Saratoga, Lake Placid, and Hudson Valley. He plans to add a Buffalo / Niagara region and a Southern Finger Lakes region in 2015, he says.
Website users will then complete a short email quote, which is called a “quick quote,” says Christian.
He replies within 24 hours with information including their hotel, their golf courses, the costs involved, and anything else included in the package.
“It’s one-stop shopping, whereas before … you’d have to do all the online research yourself to find the best courses, nearby accommodations,” says Christian.
Rochester–based Antithesis Advertising designed the New York Golf Trail website, he says.
The Golf Trail started with seven courses and about three regions during its first year of operation in 2009.
It now partners with 23 courses and 17 hotels in six regions covering “most of the state, ” says Christian.
“The courses understood the concept, liked it, and signed on,” he says, noting he then researched nearby hotels, which also embraced the concept.
In Central New York, the New York Golf Trail’s participating golf courses include Timber Banks Golf Course in Lysander, Beaver Meadows Golf Club in Schroeppel, Foxfire at Village Green in Van Buren, Pompey Golf Club in Pompey, Seven Oaks Golf Course at Colgate University in Hamilton, and Leatherstocking Golf Course in Cooperstown, according to the Golf Trail website.
The New York Golf Trail is also part of “I Love New York,” the state’s tourism-promotion brand, Christian says.
Christian handles all the partnership presentations himself or through email, he says. His relatives in the golf business in New York have helped him screen and identify top courses.
“Now, it’s actually easier to line them up now that we’ve got a record of success,” he says.
The golf courses and hotels provide special rates for the New York Golf Trail, and Christian generates a profit on the markup. And several of the golf courses provide complimentary rounds of golf based on the number of rounds they get from visitors using the Golf Trail, says Christian.
“That way they don’t have to write a check to us for participating,” he adds.
He believes New York golf, in general, has been “overlooked” in terms of its quality, he says.
“There’s no reason it can’t become the top golf destination in the Northeast,” he says.
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com
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