Manufacturing in New York State dropped significantly in March.
And, Schoharie County IDA Executive Director Jim Halios said Thursday, most of the inquiries he’s had as of late are for sites on the “smaller scale”--less than 800,000 square feet.
Add to that a report from Cushman & Wakefield, a commercial real estate firm that found for sites less than 100,000 square-feet, the vacancy rate is three percent, while for sites larger than 100,000, it’s 10 percent, and the IDA Board is wondering if their 846,000 to 1 million square foot Shad Point site is maybe too big.
“It’s just different from what we’ve been told,” said Leo McAllister, who chaired the county’s Economic Development supervisor as Cobleskill supervisor.
The Shad Point site, off I-88 and Route 145, was originally marketed as big enough for an 846,000 square foot building.
Now, it’s being “co-marketed” with an adjacent property, something that pushes it to one million square-feet for possibilities that could include warehousing or even light manufacturing.
More than a year ago, the IDA chose Scannell Properties as the preferred developer for the site and then hired the MRB Group for the necessary studies and pre-application work to make it shovel-ready.
That process has been slowed by changes in the law that switched wetlands review from the Army Corps of Engineers to DEC effective January 1.
By April, Mr. Halios said, MRB should know whether they’re “free and clear” with the Army Corps or if, as expected, DEC will be taking over the review.
Back in the fall, MRB said it hoped to have site plan work finished by May or June, but that now seems unlikely.
IDA Board member Charles Finin said it might be a good idea to reach out to Aker’s Industrial Development, owners of the old 480,000 square-foot Guilford Mills’ South Plant on South Grand Street to see how successful they’re been keeping the buildings filled.
It might give them a idea of whether it would be better to look at smaller, more flexible sites rather than bigger, he said.
When he owned and operated Mesa Technologies, Mr. Finin said, he rented Guilford’s North Plant, across from Fenimore Asset Management, “and the way it was laid out, you couldn’t break it up.”
The South Plant, he said, “was almost like separate structures with individual loading docks and offices,” making multiple tenants seem like an obvious solution to the long-vacant plant, marketed as one building before Aker bought it from the county in $400,000 in late 2015.
Tenants now include Empire Sheds, two salons, two gyms, an engineer, Visiting Nurses and taking up most of the space, Wineshipping.
Gail Breen, another IDA Board member, asked whether it’s possible to build warehouses in such a way that they’re easy to break up into smaller spaces for multiple tenants.
When you’re converting existing space, yes, Mr. Halios said. It’s harder to do when you’re building from the ground up.
“It’s been Scannell who’s been pushing for a large square-foot facility because they felt that would attract someone on that scale,” IDA Board President Chester Burton said.
“If they pull out…it’s not a given that they won’t be around, but it’s something we’ve got to think about.”
Mr. Halios said he continues to work through the details of a sales contract with Scannell and he hopes to have something to discuss at the IDA’s April meeting.
All of it, he said, is something they should keep in mind as they work on their Strategic Plan.