Category Archives: Business News

By Jennifer Farnsworth

It didn’t take long for the space at the former 190 Grille and Cinema in downtown Glens Falls to receive some attention.

Fowler Building Associates, owners of the property at 190 Glen St., said they expect the space to be filled by a new tenant as early as April.

Fowler Building Associates is a separate LLC formed by owners of JMZ Architects and Planners PC. Tenée R. Casaccio, JMZ president, said they have not signed anything yet with the prospective tenant, but are confident that they will move in and be operating their business this spring.

The identity of the new tenant is being kept confidential at this time.

By Jill Nagy

Hank’s Quality Flooring is moving to larger quarters in downtown Glens Falls.

The new location, at 28-30 Elm Street, is about twice the size of the company’s current location at 730 Upper Glen St. in Queensbury, about two miles away. It will enable the company to have its retail facility and warehouse in the same building.

“It was the only building in downtown Glens Falls that would have worked for us,”  said Hank Marler, the company’s owner.

It has plenty of parking and generous window space. As a bonus, it is in a familiar neighborhood. Marler’s grandparents lived right behind the new location and operated a now-defunct diner.

The number of craft beverage manufacturers has grown by 50 percent since the enactment of the Craft New York Act three years ago, according to state officials.

The Craft Act went into effect on Dec. 13, 2014, continuing the state’s support of the growing craft beverage industry. Since then, 340 new craft beverage businesses have opened their doors across the state, officials said.

“This administration has worked hard to cut red tape, lower costs and roll back burdensome regulations for New York’s craft beverage industry – efforts that are clearly paying off in every corner of this great state,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. “I’m proud of the continued growth of this sector, which has created jobs, spurred tourism, supported New York farms and led to the creation of top-notch world-renowned products.”

New York state has implemented a series of legislative and policy changes to capitalize on the soaring consumer demand for locally produced craft beverages and to make it easier to open and run a craft manufacturing business, officials said. These improvements include lowering taxes and fees, providing support for research, creating new licenses for farm breweries and cideries, rolling back restrictive regulations, cutting the time it takes to obtain a license in half and overhauling the state’s antiquated Alcoholic Beverage Control law.

By Maureen Werther

The former Native Textiles building in Glens Falls, which has stood vacant for the past 10 years, is under new ownership and has welcomed medical device maker AngioDynamics as the first tenant of the 116,000-square-foot facility.

Native Textiles was a significant employer in the Glens Falls region, supplying fabrics to active-wear and intimate apparel manufacturers. It employed approximately 85 people at the Native Drive location, and more employees at the nearby knitting mill on Warren Street, which also shut down.

The acquisition of the old textile mill was the result of a sustained effort on the part of EDC Warren County and commercial real estate broker Steven Borgos of Howard Hanna Realty to find a buyer for the property and position it to again contribute to the economic growth of the region.

The building is situated on a 33-acre parcel of land located off Carey Road, about a mile west of Northway Exit 18.

The Adirondack Regional Chamber of Commerce is seeking nominations for the 29th annual J. Walter Juckett Community Service Award.

The award is given to recognize and honor an extraordinary individual who has selflessly gone above and beyond by contributing time and energy to help others.

To nominate a deserving volunteer, fill out the nomination form and return it to the ARCC by Jan. 19. The form can be found on the ARCC website, www.adirondackchamber.org, or send an email to info@adirondackchamber.org and a form will be mailed.

The 2018 award will be presented at the ARCC annual dinner on March 3.

The 2017 Holiday Match charity program conducted annually by Stewart’s Shops raised $1.89 million for local children’s organizations.

Company officials said the fund drive set a record for the fourth consecutive season.

From Thanksgiving Day through Christmas Day, Stewart’s customers donated $945,000 to the program, which is an increase of approximately $19,000 over last season. Each individual donation is matched penny-for-penny by Stewart’s Shops.

There are no administrative costs and 100 percent of the funds benefit local, nonprofit children’s organizations.

“This program is proof that your small change can really add up and make a big impact on local kids,” said Stewart’s Shops President Gary Dake. “Teaming up with our customers to support our communities is just another reason why we say we are closer to you.”

By Jill Nagy

A group of financial planners, formerly under the MassMutual banner, is now the team at Halliday Financial Services.

In January, the team left as a group and joined Halliday, a small independent broker dealer in business since 1982. About 80 percent of their clients moved with them, according to Jeffrey J. Jones, senior vice president and financial advisor.

The team has had several identities in recent years. They were originally a MetLife outpost. In July 2016, MetLife sold the team to Massachusetts Mutual.

“That was not a good fit,” Jones said, largely because they were “captive agents,” limited in the financial products they could sell to their clients.

After a landmark year that expanded the Museum’s focus to include modern and contemporary art, the Hyde Collection announced its 2018 exhibition schedule.

The lineup offers contrasts to historic Hyde House and the selection of modern art exhibited in Feibes & Schmitt Gallery, including the sinuous lines of art nouveau, graphic prints from an Adirondack artist, the works of female Impressionists, the annual High School Juried Show, and a much-anticipated showing of the Nuremberg Chronicle from the permanent collection.

The exhibits include:

• Alphonse Mucha: Master of Art Nouvea in the Wood and Whitney-Renz galleries, Jan. 14 to March 18.

The exhibition examines the pivotal role of Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) in shaping the aesthetics of French art nouveau at the turn of the 20th century. The artist’s posters and graphic style popularized this international movement. Later in his career, the Czech nationalist depicted the history of the Czech lands and people.

Master of Art Nouveau spans his career, including a panel from his Slav Epic series, and bank notes from his homeland. Mucha’s exploitation of the new medium of the advertising poster helped shape the aesthetics of French art at the turn of the twentieth century and formed the cornerstone of the international Art Nouveau movement.

By Maureen Werther

Since moving to the area full-time from New Jersey, Greg Gross, owner of the Whitehall Athletic Club and Whitehall Field Club, has invested more than $2 million to date in the purchase and renovations of the historic Whitehall Armory and the former golf course located 1.5 miles from the club.

In 2009, Gross bought and incorporated the local golf facility, renaming it the Whitehall Field Club. Gross then bought the historic armory from New York state at auction in 2011 and re-opened it as the Whitehall Athletic Club in January 2012.

“We were operational right away,” said Gross, adding that the restorations and updating took 14 months to complete.

“We re-plastered, re-painted, and installed new hardwood flooring,” said Gross.

By Jill Nagy

A proposed economic development plan for Lake George envisions a year-round community with more commercial and residential development, a convention center, and a commerce park.

According to Dan Barusch, director of planning and zoning for the Town of Lake George, the plan gives an economic focus to the comprehensive plan adopted in 2015

“There is a lot of good stuff in that [2015] plan, but it has no economic focus,” he said. The comprehensive plan includes a history and background of the region and some general recommendations, he said.

He said it pinpoints areas ripe for development and makes specific recommendations for making some of those areas more attractive to developers.

For example, the plan suggests two possible sites for a commerce park: Route 9 near Northway Exit 21, going north toward Canada Creek; and a 32-acre site along Route 9N, near the southern Northway exit to Lake George, formerly a motel and vacant lot.