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BNE Cites Successes in Business Activity

Notes $472 Million in New Investments

By David Robinson
September 9, 2011

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The Buffalo Niagara Enterprise is claiming 14 project “wins” in the last year, up 55 percent from the year before but still below its prerecession levels.

The results from the region’s business development and marketing initiative are a sign that the Buffalo Niagara economy is beginning to rebound from the recession, although companies remain cautious about investing in expansion projects, BNE officials said Thursday.

“I think it’s a great sign,” said Thomas Kucharski, the BNE’s president. “We’re still attracting manufacturing projects and have a pretty good pipeline going.”

The 14 “wins” during the BNE’s fiscal year that ended in June and the $472 million in new investment that those projects will bring is a marked improvement from the depressed level of activity the BNE experienced the year before, when it booked only nine wins and $11.8 million in new investment. The BNE claimed 19 wins in 2009 and 20 wins in 2008.

“It’s picking up,” Kucharski said. “Companies are still looking. It’s just that they’re being incredibly careful in

their deliberations.”

That caution is reflected in the job creation numbers from the BNE. Even with the increase in project wins, the 465 new jobs associated with those projects are down 20 percent from 578 a year ago and are far less than the 810 new jobs the BNE reported in 2009.

The 465 new jobs that are being pledged from the BNE’s project wins are expected to have an average salary of more than $51,000, the business group said in its annual report to its members.

The bulk of the new investment reported by the BNE comes from the $380 million Greenpac paper mill project in Niagara Falls that is expected to create 108 new jobs.

Paper producer Cascades Inc. is building a new paper mill that will make lightweight liner board, a type of packaging in high demand from retailers. The plant, located next to an existing 138-employee plant on Packard Road in Niagara Falls run by Cascades’ Norampac division, will produce its liner board entirely with recycled paper fiber.

The results also are an indication of the BNE’s narrowed focus on targeted industries and on Canada. Ten of the 14 project wins involved Canadian companies.

Six projects involved advanced manufacturing, one of the BNE’s targeted industries, led by the $25 million Galvstar LLC project to open a steel mill in a former American Axle Manufacturing Co. plant in Buffalo. That project is expected to create 55 new jobs.

“Sometimes, persistence wins the day,” Kucharski said, noting that the Galvstar and Greenpac projects both were five or six years in the making.

David Smith, the BNE’s outgoing chairman, said the results show that the BNE has become a more nimble organization that can adapt to changes in the economy and the regional marketplace.

Smith, National Fuel’s chairman and CEO, has been chairman of the BNE for the last four years.

He will be replaced by Randall

L. Clark, who was the BNE’s chairman before Smith. Clark is the chairman of Dunn Tire Corp.

For 2011-12, the BNE has set a goal of 12 project wins that yield 800 new jobs and $72 million in new investment.