Tioga Downs breaks ground on three-story parking complex

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ioga Downs announced it has begun phase one of a large-scale construction project. On Nov. 18, it held a groundbreaking ceremony for a three-story parking

State unemployment rate ticks up to 7.7 percent in October

Employee Benefits & Human Resources

New York’s unemployment rate rose 0.1 percent to 7.7 percent between September and October, according to preliminary figures the New York State Department of Labor

Five Star Bank parent declares quarterly dividend of 19 cents

Banks & Credit Unions

Financial Institutions, Inc. (NASDAQ: FISI), the parent of Five Star Bank, has declared a quarterly cash dividend of 19 cents per outstanding common share. The

HCCC president, Murray, announces retirement

Health Care

HERKIMER — Herkimer County Community College (HCCC) President Ann Marie Murray has announced her retirement after serving as the college’s third president for five and

Time Warner Cable Business Class to develop business-services center in DeWitt

Subscriber Only

DeWITT — Time Warner Cable, Inc. (NYSE: TWC) plans to develop a $7.3 million business-services center in a 55,000-square-foot space in the former Hechinger shopping plaza at 3179 Erie Boulevard in DeWitt. The project will create 95 new jobs over the next four years and moves 171 existing Time Warner Cable Business Class jobs into

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The 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, which had long been vacant.

The existing jobs are in offices located in the Syracuse area, Ken Fitzpatrick, senior vice president and chief operations and transformation officer for Time Warner Cable Business Class, says in an interview.

“It’s all due to an expansion … the desire to get everybody under one roof, all of the employees, whether it’s sales, or care, or technical operations all under one roof,” Fitzpatrick says.

He is based in New York City but spoke to The Central New York Business Journal on Nov. 18 during a business trip to Columbus, Ohio.

The project is contingent on a lease agreement and Onondaga County IDA approval of sales-tax benefits.

The company’s residential business will remain its existing offices, Fitzpatrick adds.

The new, multi-functional center, which is expected to be open for occupancy in spring 2014, will serve the company’s commercial customers in the northeastern U.S.

It will be Time Warner Cable’s first consolidated business-services center.

Fitzpatrick calls the company’s business-to-business arm, branded as Time Warner Business Class, “the fastest growing area of Time Warner Cable.”

Time Warner Cable qualified for up to $2 million in performance-based Excelsior Jobs Program tax credits from New York state in return for its proposed investment and job-creation commitments, says Fitzpatrick.

The firm will pay for the remainder of the project cost using company assets, a Time Warner spokesman said in an email message.

Mark Bethmann, president of Bell Group, based in Syracuse’s Armory Square, worked with Chicago, Ill.–based Jones Lang LaSalle to help Time Warner Cable find the space for its expansion, the spokesman said.

Paradise Companies 2, LLC will serve as Time Warner Cable’s landlord in its new space, the company said.

When asked about the architectural services involved, the company indicated Time Warner has “some existing partners who are really familiar with our needs and help us maintain a level of consistency within our facilities.”

The Pioneer Companies of Syracuse is serving as the contractor on the project, according to Time Warner.

Time Warner Cable provides video, high-speed data, and voice services in the U.S., connecting more than 15 million customers to entertainment, information and each other.

Time Warner Cable Business Class offers data, video and voice services to businesses of all sizes, cell tower backhaul services to wireless carriers and enterprise-class, cloud-enabled hosting, managed applications and services, the description said.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com

SBA Emerging Leaders initiative graduates its latest class

Small Business

SYRACUSE — Representatives from more than a dozen local companies graduated from this year’s Emerging Leaders initiative (formerly known as e200), a program of the

Gifford and Allyn Foundations jointly announce recipients of 2013 Leadership Award

Nonprofits, Subscriber Only

SYRACUSE — Gifford Foundation board president Jack Webb recently announced the recipients of the 2013 Kathy Goldfarb-Findling Leadership Award. The Allyn Foundation has joined the Gifford Foundation in presenting the award, and in acknowledgement of this new partnership have named two winners of “The Kathy” this year. Randi Bregman, executive director of Vera House, and

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Gallup: Majority in U.S. say health care is not the government’s responsibility

Small Business, Subscriber Only

Polling firm Gallup reported Nov. 18 that its most-recent annual health-care poll, conducted Nov. 7-10, found that 56 percent of U.S. adults now say it’s not the federal government’s responsibility to make sure all Americans have health-care coverage. Before 2009, “a clear majority of Americans consistently had said the government should take responsibility for ensuring

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Before 2009, “a clear majority of Americans consistently had said the government should take responsibility for ensuring that all Americans have health care,” Gallup said in its survey report. That view peaked in 2006, when 69 percent of Americans said it’s the federal government’s duty to make sure all Americans have health-care coverage, while only 28 percent said it wasn’t.

“Attitudes began to shift significantly in 2007, and continued to change through the time President Barack Obama took office in 2009,” the Gallup report prepared by Joy Wilke said. “Americans who feel healthcare coverage is not the federal government’s responsibility have been in the clear majority the past two years.”

Attitudes across all three partisan groups have shifted away from the view that ensuring health-care coverage is government’s role, but most especially among Republicans and independents, according to Gallup.

Since 2000, the share of Republicans believing the government should not be responsible for ensuring all Americans have health coverage has risen from 53 percent to 86 percent, according to Gallup.

The polling firm found that 55 percent of independents currently say the government should not be involved with health care, up from 27 percent in 2000.

The percentage of Democrats holding this view now stands at 30 percent, up from 10 percent in 2006 and 19 percent in 2000, Gallup found.

“The continuing implementation of the [national health-care law] over the coming months and years will surely continue to shape Americans’ attitudes toward the federal government’s role in this area,” Wilke wrote. “It is not clear how the [law’s] troubled rollout to date will affect attitudes over the next year. But as the debate about the implementation of the new healthcare law has unfolded, Americans have become less likely than ever to agree that the federal government should be responsible for making sure that all Americans have healthcare.”

Gallup said it conducted telephone interviews of a random sample of 1,039 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The margin of error was plus or minus four percentage points.

Governor announces grants for local-government cost reduction

Subscriber Only

Several local governments in Central New York are among 68 governments statewide that will share in $4 million in grant funding to implement initiatives to streamline operations and “save taxpayer money.” Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the grant awards on Nov. 12. The New York State Department of State will distribute the Local Government Efficiency (LGE)

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A La Carte Business Services to move to new, nearby space

Construction, Design & Real Estate, Small Business, Subscriber Only

SALINA — A La Carte Business Services is moving to a new location across the highway from the office where it has operated since April 2012. The business is moving from 916B Old Liverpool Rd. in Salina to the Lakeshore Office Building across the highway at 913 Old Liverpool Rd. It’ll be one of several

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SALINA — A La Carte Business Services is moving to a new location across the highway from the office where it has operated since April 2012.

The business is moving from 916B Old Liverpool Rd. in Salina to the Lakeshore Office Building across the highway at 913 Old Liverpool Rd. It’ll be one of several tenants in the building that also includes Pinnacle Dental Group and CCPlus, Inc., a computer-technology firm.

A La Carte Business Services specializes in office operations for small to medium-sized businesses, including outsourced accounting and bookkeeping services, office systems, cost analysis, and payroll services.

It also offers a training course on the use of QuickBooks software for companies and organizations with staff members focused on bookkeeping.

“We are moving our desks the Monday before Thanksgiving [Nov. 25] and we will officially open the doors Dec. 2,” says Chris Belna, president and owner of A La Carte Business Services.

Belna is hoping to take advantage of the “slowness” of that week to get established in the new space, she says.

A La Carte Business Services is moving from its current, 900-square-foot space, on the second floor of a building that also houses Edward Jones financial advisor Jim Henty. Its new space in the Lakeshore Office Building is about 850 square feet, Belna says.

“It’s about the same amount of space that we have now but reconfigured to better suit us,” she adds.

A La Carte’s current space can accommodate up to six people, and the company currently employs four full-time workers, including Belna.

Its new location can accommodate up to eight people, she adds. The firm also has the right to expand to an adjacent 450-square-foot space, if it’s available

The new office space will provide first-floor access, additional parking, and space available to place a sign for drivers and passersby to see.

“A lot of people drive down Old Liverpool Road every day,” Belna says.

The entrance to the company’s current space is a side door that includes A La Carte’s name and logo, consisting of four interconnected puzzle pieces.

A La Carte rents its current space from Michael Charles. That space has allowed the company to grow its client base.

The company now works with 55 clients and has grown its revenue 140 percent in 2013 compared to the previous year, Belna says, declining to disclose specific figures.

“I love this space, but to get out in front of the building where we’re a little bit easier to find and [offers] a little bit more reconfigured space was really key for us.” Belna says.

A La Carte signed a lease with Dr. James Richardson, a dentist at the Pinnacle Dental Group and the landlord at the Lakeshore Office Building.

Belna’s boyfriend, Nicholas Montanaro, designed the space, and Richardson handled the build out of the space, which is financed through the lease agreement, Belna says.

As a resident of Liverpool, Belna had always liked the Lakeshore Office Building as a possible location for her company.

“It’s just kind of quaint and sitting there and [provides] easy access,” she says.

However, when she was looking for space after starting her business, the price per square footage was too expensive, Belna says, so she opted for the space where it has operated since April 2012.

But Belna kept her eye on the building. When she noticed that Pinnacle was moving into the structure Belna did some investigating and learned the building had new ownership.

Richardson had reduced the square footage price to attact new tenants, she says.

“So, we started a negotiation with the new owner to see if I could get what we needed over there at the price they were offering and we were able to do it,” she says.

It’ll be A La Carte’s second office in three years of operation, which initially began in Belna’s home in Salina.

Prior to starting A La Carte Businesses Services, Belna spent more than two decades in operations and business management in the restaurant, investment, and construction fields.

Along the way, Belna discovered that the operating a company is the same “no matter what your product is,” knowledge that inspired her to launch her own company focused on business operations.

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