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First Niagara Expanding With 500 Jobs

Business First - by Allissa Kline and James Fink

Monday, May 2, 2011
 

A combination of recent acquisitions and its own growth is prompting a plan by First Niagara Financial Group Inc. to add 500 employees – mostly in Western New York – to its workforce.

The hirings will take place between now and 2016 and the new jobs will range from customer-facing and direct support roles to administrative and back-office functions. The expansion is being fueled by a handsome incentive package totaling $5.7 million from the Empire State Development Corp.

John Koelmel, First Niagara president and CEO, made the formal announcement Monday afternoon during a news conference in the lobby of the Larkin at Exchange building. The former Lockport Savings Bank moved its headquarters from Pendleton to Buffalo in the fall of 2009.

The addition of so many new jobs demonstrates the bank’s commitment to the region and its plans to become something more than it is today, Koelmel said.

“These are full-time, career-building positions,” Koelmel said. The promise of the jobs shows “strong evidence” of the bank’s ongoing ties to Buffalo and Western New York, he added.

Right now, about 400 First Niagara employees work in the Larkin at Exchange building while the company employs about 1,300 workers across the region, Koelmel said. In total, the company employs about 5,000 workers, including those retained during the April 15 acquisition of NewAlliance Bancshares Inc. in Connecticut and Massachusetts. It has 346 branches in four states and $30 billion in assets.

The new jobs mean First Niagara will have to find more physical room for its employees. Koelmel has acknowledged that First Niagara is “out of space” in the Larkin District, where it leases one full floor and half of two other floors. He said Monday that the bank plans to make “substantial capital investments” to expand its infrastructure.

Koelmel stopped just short of confirming that the bank will be the anchor tenant in Howard Zemsky’s proposed redevelopment of the historic “U Building” along Van Renesslaer Street. Zemsky is working with Buffalo and Erie County officials on an incentive package for renovations planned for the circa 1893, 46,000-square-foot building. That plan is just working its way through the municipal approval process.

“It is not illogical conclusion,” Koelmel said about First Niagara occupying the U Building.

Andrew Rudnick, Buffalo Niagara Partnership president and CEO, said First Niagara’s decision will have nothing but positive impact on the fast-emerging Larkinville District that’s evolving along Seneca, Exchange and Van Rensselaer streets.

“It will stimulate activity along the Seneca Street corridor,” Rudnick said. “We’re already seeing signs of that.”

Those include the development trio of Jim Cornell, Peter Krog and Gordon Reger starting a $50 million renovation of the Larkin Commerce Center, which neighbors the Larkin at Exchange building and Capital Management’s plans to occupy a new building Zemsky is developing on Seneca Street.

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said expansion plans by the like of First Niagara makes “his job easier” when trying convince companies to invest in the city.

“Whether its Howard Zemsky or First Niagara, they are creating a sense of investment,” Brown said. “Developers look at this and see something that makes sense. And they think, ‘if this makes sense to them (First Niagara), then it makes sense to me.’”