By Jennifer Farnsworth
A property with open space in Queensbury is being cleared for the construction of a virtual sports facility.
David Brindle of Luxury Box LLC, developer of the project, said the facility will include seven separate buildings located on Route 9 across from the Fun Spot.
Brindle said the zoning approval came through at the end of January and they are now just waiting for final approval on building permits.
Brindle expects the project to be completed by mid-March if all goes well.
The seven buildings will have virtual golf. It will also give customers options for baseball, darts, soccer, hockey, hunting and more. The golf simulators also offer much more than the traditional program, said Brindle.
“The technology with these games is so advanced. We have golf simulators in the area but this goes way beyond what we have seen, with a putting simulator and the ability to play many courses,” he said.
Estimating Costs For Construction Projects Is A Difficult Task During COVID
By Christine Graf
Economists and industry experts predict that the construction industry will continue to be plagued by rising material costs, material shortages and supply chain disruptions throughout 2021.
Thomas Albrecht Sr., owner of Hilltop Construction in Glens Falls, said his residential and commercial construction company, like so many others, has faced issues with material shortages.
“Expectations of delivery are non-existent,” he said. “My biggest challenge is educating our clients that you can have contracts and you can set dates, but we can’t necessary meet them because of the challenges we are faced with. What you could get in 4 weeks max could now be out 8 to 12 weeks. That means our planning has to be much more extensive.”
Hilltop Construction has 30 employees, many of whom have had to quarantine due to COVID exposure. As a result, the company has to absorb additional labor costs.
“The fallout continues as we see employees being exposed and having to quarantine,” he said. “We, by law, have to pay them up to five days. That’s a revolving door that continues and the financial burden continues.”
“The price increases are pretty drastic,” said Sara Turoczy, manager of business development at MLB Construction Services in Malta. “Along with lumber, we are seeing steel pricing skyrocket.”
Work Underway At Warren County Airport Includes The Construction Of New Hangars
By Jill Nagy
There is a $1 million building project planned for the Floyd Bennett Memorial Airport in Queensbury, which is the Warren County airport. Eight new hangars will be constructed.
The project will also result in a new building to house snow removal equipment and one replacing an original structure built in the 1940s.
Work is expected to begin in the spring.
Officials are also applying for a grant to upgrade the runway lights to LED lights.
Plank Construction of Schenectady is the general contractor. That project is budgeted at $993,000, of which the state Department of Transportation will pay 90 percent and Warren County will pay the balance.
SBA And Lenders Are Taking More Steps To Improve Paycheck Protection Program
The U.S. Small Business Administration and lenders are taking more strides to improve the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) so that small businesses can access much needed funds to persevere through the pandemic, recover, and build back better.
The administration is working to increase equitable access to under-served small businesses, to assure the integrity of the program, and to promote rapid and efficient distribution of funds, officials said.
By Feb. 10, the SBA had hit a major milestone of approving $104 billion of PPP funds to more than 1.3 million small businesses, according to the agency.
Highlights from this round include:
During COVID Pandemic, Attorneys Face Challenges In Courts And Business Law Cases
By Susan Elise Campbell
As businesses adjust to the unprecedented challenges of a pandemic, so do the attorneys who advise them.
“There have been a whirlwind of legal issues that we never thought we would have to deal with,” said James T. Towne Jr. of The Towne Law Firm PC, with offices in Saratoga Springs and Glens Falls.
Unique issues about government relief, bankruptcy and foreclosures, contracts, COVID-19 fraud, cybersecurity and much more are on a daunting list of topics attorneys are being challenged to address this past year.
“During the first 120 days we were confronted with a variety of labor and employment inquiries,” said Towne.
Many of these were rooted in the logistics and liabilities of sending non-essential staff home to work and as a condition of employment, he said.
“Managers are accustomed to taking their laptops and working from home, but maybe not the support staff,” he said. “Matters come up about restrictions on the equipment taken offsite, using that equipment for personal matters, and businesses not enforcing obligations in connection with work performed at home.”
Matthew F. Fuller, partner at Meyer, Fuller & Stockwell PLLC in Lake George, said that whether an employer can mandate that staff get vaccinated has “no clear cut answer. If someone gives you a straight answer, don’t listen.” He is addressing the issues of testing and vaccinations for the municipalities he represents.
“There are conflicting directives from the federal government and from the governor’s office,” Towne said. “In New York, different classes of employees need to negotiate their contracts,” he said. “If the municipality’s internal staff is under a collective bargaining agreement we have to go through that agreement very carefully to see what we’re dealing with” as to what can be mandated.
Business Report: Preventing Small Business Fraud
By Paul Zarecki
Small businesses are more likely to become the victims of fraud than larger businesses.
Small businesses are the most vulnerable to occupational fraud and abuse, according to the Association for Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE). In its 2020 Report to the Nation on Occupational Fraud and Abuse, ACFE cites that the smallest organizations, 100 employees or less, suffered higher median losses than did the largest organizations (10,000 employees or more).
While the largest companies suffered losses of $140,000 on average, small businesses’ losses averaged $150,000, based on its survey.
Considering the potential losses and how much more of an impact $150,000 is to a smaller business than a larger business, it befits small-business owners to make the prevention of fraud a priority. Though no business owner wants to feel it employs unscrupulous people, sometimes temptation or personal financial pressures can push even the hardest working, most trusted employee into perpetrating fraud.
Here’s how you can prevent fraudulent activity in your workplace:
LayerEight, Formerly PrimeLink Managed Services, Grows IT, Cybersecurity Services
By Jennifer Farnsworth
It has been a little over a month since LayerEight, formerly PrimeLink Managed Services division, has reintroduced itself to the business community as a new subsidiary of the 118-year -old Champlain Telephone Co.
In keeping with the telephone company philosophy, LayerEight officials said it will focus on personalized customer service by specializing in IT, cybersecurity and construction services for telecommunications infrastructure.
The company is based out of Plattsburgh, however Vicki A. Marking, its sales and marketing director, said there are a number of well established clients as far reaching as Saratoga County, with the ability to serve satellite offices across New York State.
“The demographic in the Glens Falls and Saratoga area really match with what we have in the Plattsburgh area. We have a sweet spot for certain size businesses who are looking for personalized, local IT support,” said Marking.
She said when the coronavirus first hit last March, business exploded for them in many ways that were initially unexpected. With so many people having to work from home, being able to set people up with networks for a “home office” became a growing demand.
They also were being sought out for their ability to provide IT cybersecurity.
“All of sudden our clients were finding themselves in an unplanned situation where they were having to connect to work servers, and having to think about confidentiality and security, and all from home,” said Marking.
Business Briefs: February 2021
Glens Falls Hospital will begin restarting elective/non-emergent procedures beginning Feb. 22.
“Glens Falls Hospital staff will be reaching out to our patients to confirm rescheduled dates for their surgeries and procedures,” said the hospital’s Chief Operating Officer Paul Scimeca. “We’ll continue to increase capacity as quickly as possible in order to care for those patients waiting for a surgical procedure.”
The hospital curtailed non-emergent procedures voluntarily in late December as the number of hospitalized COVID patients increased at GFH and throughout the region. This was to redeploy staff to medical/surgical units to care for the increased number of inpatients.
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The Lake George Regional Chamber of Commerce Women in Business group has transitioned back to virtual meetings until further notice.
The group had been meeting in a hybrid format, with virtual and limited in-person attendance as an option, since September but chose to go back to virtual-only meetings as of its January meeting.