Photos by Tom Rivers

Gregg Albertson, an Albion graduate, sings during a concert tonight with the Golden Notes, an A Cappella group from the College of Saint Rose in Albany. The group performed in the Albion Middle School auditorium. The Brick City Singers, an all-male A Cappella group from the Rochester Institute of Technology, also performed. That group includes Albion graduates Robbie Stilwell and Geoff Symonds. The concert also included the Albion High School Men’s Select Chorus. In the photo below, Steven Musso, a co-musical director for the Golden Notes, sings a solo. Albertson is at the far right.

30 jobs expected at site owned by Orleans EDA since 2002

Photo by Tom Rivers

A warehouse on McKinstry Street in Albion, which has sat mostly vacant the past 11 years, will be upgraded and turned into a site for electronics recycling. The company expects to add 30 jobs in the next three years.

ALBION – A Canadian company is working to acquire a long-vacant warehouse on McKinstry Street with plans to upgrade the property and turn it into a base for recycling electronics.

The company, BOMET Recycling, Inc., intends to hire 30 people for the site within three years. The company is led by Zhan “Bo” Zhang of Cambridge, Ontario. BOMET recovers metals from electronics and other recyclable materials and reported a $25 million revenue for its operation based in Canada, according to a report from the Orleans Economic Development Agency.

The Orleans EDA owns the property at 152 McKinstry St. The agency’s board today accepted a $176,000 offer from BOMET to buy the 52,000-square-foot property.

The company will spend about $700,000 in addition to the purchase price by replacing the roof, making other building upgrades and buying equipment for the Albion operation.

The EDA board also approved tax incentives that will save the company $94,347 over 10 years. The company will pay $61,034 in local taxes over the next decade as part of the tax agreement approved today.

The site currently isn’t generating any property tax for the village, town, school or county because the EDA has owned the property.

The EDA board approved a 10-year phase-in for property taxes. The company will have the full $13,563 abated the first year. Each year after that it will then pay 10 percent more of the taxes on a $300,000 assessed building until it’s at the full 100 percent.

BOMET also was approved for an $18,000 sales tax break and $1,750 abatement from the mortgage tax.

The change in building ownership will take a burden off the EDA. The agency purchased the warehouse and adjoining parking lot for $527,000 in February 2002.

At that time Washington Mutual was in expansion mode in Albion. The company needed lots of parking, and some local officials hoped WaMu would quickly run out of space at the former Dime Bank complex on East Avenue.

The EDA saw an opportunity next to WaMu with the warehouse and the agency bought it.

The parking lot has proven a need for WaMu, and its successor, JP Morgan Chase. But the big warehouse has been an albatross for the EDA, consuming about $25,000 to $30,000 in annual interest payments plus another $10,000 in utilities, lawn care, sprinkler inspections and other costs, said Jim Whipple, the EDA chief executive officer.

BOMET will have access to 15 of the parking spaces as part of the deal with the EDA. Whipple said he expects the deal to close soon with work starting on the building in the summer.

Photo by Tom Rivers – Village Hall, at right, on East Bank Street is part of a historic downtown business district. Village officials say they want to see the Albion Main Street Alliance continue efforts for downtown revitalization.

ALBION – Before Mayor Dean Theodorakos and the Village Board commit more money to the Albion Main Street Alliance, they want assurances the organization will be viable now that it doesn’t have a paid director.

Before AMSA can give those guarantees, it would like a funding commitment from the village, so AMSA can then reach out to other private investors in the organization.

“The past has been good,” Theodorakos told AMSA board president Maarit Vaga and former president Michael Bonafede on Wednesday. “Now, what about the future?”

The two AMSA leaders said the organization’s fate, and its ability to push for downtown revitalization, may hinge on the village’s level of support. The village designated $10,000 a year to AMSA the past four years, but hasn’t set aside money for the group in the 2013-14 budget, a spending plan that needs to be approved by the end of the month. The village also contributes $5,000 annually with in-kind services.

“Whether the village will support us is critical to our survival,” Vaga told the board.

Katelin Olson, the group’s executive director for three years, resigned on April 1 because AMSA didn’t have money to keep paying her. She has offered to stay on as a volunteer interim director, and work to close out a $477,000 state grant for downtown building and street-scape improvements.

AMSA could continue as a volunteer-only organization, but that would significantly limit the group’s impact and ability to implement a four-point approach for downtown, Vaga said. AMSA was formed after Albion was picked a “Main Street” community in late 2008 by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Theodorakos said he strongly backs the National Trust model for revitalizing Main Street through organization, promotion, design and economic restructuring.

AMSA has been working to implement the four-point plan, and those changes haven’t always been well received by some in the community, Bonafede acknowledged.

“Change can be difficult and we’ve brought in a lot of change,” he said.

The community is seeing the fruits of AMSA’s labor with the downtown improvements and an organization of dedicated community stakeholders, including many business owners and residents, Bonafede said. AMSA counted 6,050 volunteer hours in 2012, and 20,000 since the group formed in late 2008.

He asked what more AMSA could do to win financial support, and good will from the board.

“What is the standard we’re judged by?” he asked. “In our minds there is nothing more that we could have done.”

Village officials, including Code Enforcement Officer Ron Vendetti, said “politics” has hurt AMSA’s reputation.

But Bonafede said that was “rubbish.” Community leaders and public officials who sometimes don’t get along often get past that and become friends not long after.

“Personality clashes” shouldn’t get in the way of working for the community, Vaga said.

Vendetti wants AMSA to continue, but he said the group needs to work closer with the village.

Vaga urged the board to be a “cheerleader” for AMSA, to counter some of the naysayers and “misinformation” in the community. And she asked the board to give AMSA some money, which will help the group have more credibility to then seek private funding and other grants for community projects.

AMSA has been hurt by the public funding cuts. The town had been giving $10,000 annually to AMSA but stopped in 2013. The organization also received $10,000 a year its first three years – 2009 through 2011 – from the local development corporation of the Orleans Economic Development Agency.

Albion is one of about 3,000 “Main Street” communities in the U.S. Many of them receive their municipal funding from their local village or city, Bonafede said.

Vaga said the group wants to continue to work for community good.

“We all believe in what could happen in Albion and what Albion could be,” Vaga said. “That is what we’re chasing.”

The mayor said an AMSA funding request will be considered by the board before the budget vote later this month.