By DAN HEATH
Staff Writer
May 15, 2008 09:03 am
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PLATTSBURGH -- Nova Bus received approval from the Town of Plattsburgh Planning Board to perform preliminary foundation work for its $25 million bus assembly plant Tuesday night.
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The Planning Board unanimously approved the State Environmental Quality Review at its monthly meeting. It also approved issuance of a foundation permit before the full detailed preliminary plan has been approved.
"This will be a wonderful addition to the community," said The Development Corp. President Adoré Flynn Kurtz.
The plant is to be built by V.I.P. Structures of Syracuse. The Development Corp. will sell the property to V.I.P. Structures, who will sell it to Nova Bus once the facility is completed.
V.I.P. Structures President Charles Wallace Jr. said the company still needs to receive a State Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit from the State Department of Environmental Conservation, a letter from the Army Corps of Engineers about wetlands that are actually former farm ditches and a review of its foundation plan by the Town Codes Enforcement Office.
"I anticipate we will get (a foundation) permit within the next week or so. We will start site work immediately after," he said.
That site work and other aspects of the construction are expected to be awarded to local contractors, Wallace said. Those contracts will be awarded on an ongoing basis, he said.
Work should start by June 1 at the latest, with the production area completed by Jan. 5, 2009, and the offices by Feb. 15. Nova Bus will start installing equipment once the production area is done and assembly of buses is expected to start sometime in March.
Stantec Consulting Senior Traffic Engineer David DeBaie presented details from an updated traffic study that showed minimal impacts at three intersections on Banker Road -- Route 374, Tom Miller Road and Route 3. Those impacts were minimized because Nova production staff will start work at 7 a.m. and finish at 3:30 p.m.
Kurtz said the engineering and design team did a great job.
"It's all about being prepared and having a good developer," she said.
Nova Bus is a wholly owned subsidiary of Volvo Bus Corp., the second-largest motorcoach and transit bus manufacturing group in the world. There are more than 3,500 Nova Bus low-floor buses in service in the United States and Canada.
The company is based in Ste-Eustache, Quebec.
The 136,000-square-foot manufacturing facility will be in The Development Corp.'s Banker Road Industrial Park on the east side of Banker Road north of UPS. By comparison, the UPS building is about 40,800 square feet.
That location, which is also in the City of Plattsburgh Empire Zone, allows Nova Bus to meet Federal Transit Administration Buy America requirements that are a necessary part of most large transit authority contracts.
The company expects to initially employ 150 to 175 colleagues, a figure that is expected to reach 300 at full capacity and possibly 435 if success leads to expansion. Production employees are expected to make between $12 and $18 per hour.
The state will provide a $1.3 million JOBS NOW capital grant. An additional $1.65 million could come from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and the New York Office of Small Cities.
Plattsburgh Town Supervisor Bernie Bassett said he was pleased to see the plans for Nova Bus continue to move forward. He said there have been too many times when North Country residents were disappointed when an announced project didn't materialize.
"Nova Bus will not be one of those disappointments," Bassett said.
He said it is important to note that Nova Bus does not have a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement, and will pay school, land and special-district taxes on the property. Some of that money will be reimbursed because the property is in the City of Plattsburgh's Empire Zone.
Bassett said the town is home to a number of high-profile projects, including the successful start of Plattsburgh International Airport, Target, Hampton Inn and Suites, redevelopment of the North Country Shopping Center and the Gateway Theater at that location and White Pine Commons.
"The recent announcement that Laurentian Aerospace continues to move forward is also very exciting and another sign the North Country and Clinton County are a good investment," Bassett said. "This is a good time for those entering the job market and those looking for new opportunity. It's an exciting time to be in the Champlain Valley."
dheath@pressrepublican.com
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Photos
A Nova Bus LFS (Low Floor System) vehicle.