About Us
This is Bill Daly, Administrative Director/CEO of the County of Chautauqua Industrial Development Agency (CCIDA). The other members of our team are Rich Dixon, CFO; Carol Rasmussen, Project Manager; Lawrie Taylor, Project Manager; Kristine Morabito, Project Manager in our Dunkirk, NY office; and Sue Casel, Administrative Assistant. They do a wonderful job working on behalf of the companies who get assistance from the CCIDA. I’m taking this opportunity to discuss some of the projects the CCIDA is involved in currently, some future initiatives, and some very serious concerns facing economic development in our county.
Perhaps the most important concept I can impart is to ask local businesses to please let us know what plans they have going forward. An effort is constantly made to meet with businesses county wide, but there are so many it is very difficult to do. Often, we concentrate on the larger companies because they have more employees available to interface with outside agencies like the CCIDA, but we want to get to know as many of our medium and small size employers, too. Numerous visits to local companies have been made, many with Greg Edwards, our County Executive, who has made company visits a priority. Any employers reading this who would like a visit should call Sue Casel at 661-8903 and schedule a meeting at the IDA or a visit at your business.
It is important for businesses to let us know of their plans early on because we can get other agencies involved with us to see what incentives may be available. Unfortunately, some benefits can be lost if a company moves ahead with their plans and expend money before the agencies are involved. Sometimes the form the business takes and the timing of when they form the business entity can affect benefits that are available. This is especially true for certain tax credits in an Empire Zone and various grants through Empire State Development (ESD—the economic development arm of New York State). There are two Empire Zones in Chautauqua County—the Greater Jamestown Empire Zone and the Dunkirk/Sheridan Empire Zone, each with its own director. ESD has a regional office in Buffalo and a local representative for our county.
The AL Tech Revolving Loan Fund and the Chautauqua Revolving Loan Fund are two funds at the CCIDA with 4% fixed interest loans. We have been very aggressive in getting the story of the availability of these loans throughout the business community. Fortunately, we have had great success in getting the money loaned for some excellent business expansion plans that have created and retained jobs in the county. These funds can be loaned to a wide variety of businesses and are not limited to just manufacturing companies.
Two additional low interest financial instruments IDAs have are Industrial Revenue Bonds for manufacturers and Civic Facilities Bonds for not-for-profit organizations. The CCIDA issued Civic Facilities Bonds allowing JCC to fund the construction of its new dorms on their Jamestown campus at lower interest rates.
As an IDA, we are a public authority in New York State, and because of that, we can offer powerful incentives to induce businesses to move here or expand here. There are variations, but the three basic tools are PILOTS (Payments In Lieu of Taxes) to reduce property taxes, forgiveness of sales tax on construction project materials, and forgiveness of mortgage filing tax. These inducements are used for attracting new businesses or helping existing businesses expand. They are available for manufacturing companies or businesses that have been designated tourist destinations.
CURRENT PROJECTS - The following are a few of the many projects we are actively involved in with a brief explanation of the project:
• Selling CCIDA-owned properties, especially those in our industrial parks, has been a priority, and we have had appraisals done on many of the parcels we own. We have been successful in selling some parcels and are in the process of selling several more.
• We have 140 commercial acres in Ripley under options, and we are involved in an aggressive campaign to get the site "shovel ready". Our goal is to sell this valuable parcel to a large distribution company or manufacturer. This may be one of the finest development sites on I-90, and it is situated almost equidistant from New York City and Chicago.
• Several projects are underway that will be part of Brownfield remediation and reuse. These are complicated projects, and there has been strong leadership from the County Executive who has pulled together the resources of the DPF, the County's Legal Department, the CCIDA, and the local municipal governments where the Brownfields are located.
• The Jamestown Airport has been a priority, and we worked with County Executive Edwards and Dave Sanctuary, the Airport Manager, to get better commercial service for the airport while looking for additional ways to get more overall use of the facility. On October 1, 2008 the carrier changed to Gulfstream International Airlines with connections to Continental Airlines at the Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.
• Tourism is extremely important to our economy, and we work with the Concord Grape Belt Heritage Association and the Chautauqua County Visitors Bureau to find ways to enhance tourism in general and agritourism specifically. A "Discovery Center" for the Concord Grape Belt Heritage Association has been envisioned for several years and now with the help of a grant from of $1,050,000 NYS Senator Catherine Young it should become a reality. The Center will become a major "lure" to attract tourists off of I-90 to visit Chautauqua County.
• We held a very successful inaugural Chautauqua County Energy Conference & Expo last November at Chautauqua Suites in Mayville with 55 vendors, over 50 presenters on a wide number of energy issues, and over 1,000 attendees. We are already planning for the 2009 event to be held on October 23 and 24 again at Chautauqua Sites.
INITIATIVES - These are a few of the concepts that we are working on. The goal is to move them to real projects.
• Improve the Rt. 60/Rt. 62 corridor from Dunkirk through Jamestown to Warren.
• Create wetlands "banks" for use by developers and businesses that can be coupled with a wildlife refuge. One would be done in the Lake Erie watershed and one in the Chautauqua Lake watershed.
• Look for additional sites for industrial/business parks.
• Organize pre-seed, seed and early start-up business equity and loan funds to help entrepreneurs get established in our county. The CCIDA is working with the SUNY Fredonia Technology Incubator in Dunkirk to establish a seed fund for Incubator tenants.
• Greatly enhance local tourism by identifying and promoting a "brand" for what our county offers tourists. The brand helps market the area by relating the experiences available to tourists if they visit. The CCIDA is working with several local groups to work with a national tourism expert to identify the major "lures" that attract tourists and then build marketing around the best tourist experiences.
CONCERNS - There are several concerns, but these two are critical to economic development:
• Local companies will need workers to hire for jobs that will be available in the county. That problem is from entry-level positions up to management, with a serious need for skilled workers in manufacturing. It is a crisis, but we are taking major strides under the County Executive's strong leadership to work with the workforce agencies and schools for short- and long-term solutions. This effort has been regional, and there has been exceptional cooperation in identifying the problems and inventorying the best practices throughout the region to get students ready for the workforce. The Workforce Investment Board, MAST, JCC/MTI, several of our public schools, BOCES, and others are participating in this effort. We will be embarking on a national program to increase awareness of the various quality jobs available in manufacturing called Dream !t, Do !t. It targets 16 to 26 year olds and their parents.
• Property taxes are a killer of economic development. The top leaders in our state from both major political parties repeatedly acknowledge the damage property tax does to attracting and retaining businesses. Some of them feel it is our worst problem. Chautauqua County must focus on reducing property taxes. Other areas of the country--Florida and Pennsylvania to name two—and now there is a move in NYS to consider putting caps on property tax increases and allowing only increases in sale taxes and fees. All developers and businesses who are considering coming to our county or doing expansion projects here ask the same basic questions—what property is available, what is the infrastructure at the site, what the workforce demographic is, what incentives are available, and what the property taxes are. No developers or businesses have ever asked what our sales taxes are.
