Downtown Troy businesses expected to benefit from former hotel’s transformation

By KENNETH C. CROWE II, Staff writer

Photos by Will Waldron

First published in print: Saturday, May 16, 2009

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute President, Shirley Ann Jackson, left, makes remarks during a ribbon-cutting for RPI's new Howard Blitman, P.E. '50 Residence Commons, in Troy Friday. The former Best Western Rensselaer Inn on Sixth Avenue was transformed into a 150-room residence and will house about 300 students.

TROY — Businesses expect to benefit from the 300 students living downtown in Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s new dorm this fall.

And RPI’s decision to run a shuttle bus to the new Howard N. Blitman, P.E. ’50 Residence Commons on Sixth Avenue near Broadway will provide easy access for students up on the main campus.

“It’s fantastic. I gives RPI students a real stronghold down here,” said Elizabeth Young, executive director of the Troy Downtown Collaborative.

RPI opened the dorm Friday. The students will move in this August for the start of the university’s 2009-10 school year.

The university spent $17 million to acquire the former Best Western Inn hotel property and transform it into student residences. The rebuilding phase of the project cost $8 million to strip the building down to a shell then remake it into the dorms.

“I’m very, very moved by this,” said Blitman, an RPI trustee who lives in Scarsdale.

Blitman’s family has been associated with RPI since 1910 when his father Charles Blitman

Here's a student dorm room in Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's new Howard Blitman, P.E. '50 Residence Commons, in downtown Troy Friday.

arrived to attend the school. His grandfather, Charles Blitman, was a farmer in East Greenbush.

Blitman recalled that as an RPI student he lived downtown on First Street near the YWCA and ran up the Approach to make morning classes on the hilltop campus.

Mayor Harry Tutunjian said the city is anticipating the positive impact by the arrival of the students.

“This influx of students into our downtown will one day prove to be the move that enhances the town and gown relationship that we all strive for,” Tutunjian said in a statement. “This is a very exciting opportunity for us all.”

This year, RPI student leaders and organizations approached Troy Night Out and the Troy Downtown Collaborative to involve students with events, Young said.

RPI President Shirley Ann Jackson stressed that the development of the new residential commons reflects the university-wide effort to improve the student living and learning experience.

Jackson said in a statement that RPI’s investment in the dorm and on the main campus has helped the city’s economic revival.

The new dorm will remain on the city tax rolls. RPI said it pays $1.2 million annually in rent for office and research space downtown. When the students arrive, more than 500 people affiliated with RPI will live or work downtown.

Published in print in the Capital Region section of the Saturday, May 16, 2009 edition of the Times Union, Albany. NY. Photos and article appeared online: www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=800638.

Magali Cintron, an employee of Sun Rich Fresh Foods Inc. prepares grapefruit and cantaloupe for weighing.

By Tony Lucia
Reading Eagle

PROMINENTLY SITUATED atop the rise at the east end of the Buttonwood Street Bridge, the Sun Rich Fresh Foods Inc. building brings the promise to the neighborhood of a new day after the long night represented by the decaying, vacant American Chain & Cable Co. plant that had occupied the site for decades.

And, just beginning production of its product, fresh-cut fruit, in Reading, the Sun Rich plant is at the very beginning of that new day.

With about 100 workers, compared with the 250 it plans to have by the end of its first three years, the processing plant – Sun Rich’s largest – is running at about 10 percent of its capacity, said Jim Jaroszewski, facility operations manager.

That status is evident throughout the spotless, 43,000-square-foot facility, which, whether in its warehouse or its processing rooms, clearly has space to grow into.

But, said Carl Svangtun, executive vice president and chief operating officer, Sun Rich will get there, and even has room for further expansion at its six-acre parcel in the Buttonwood Gateway industrial park.

“We’re a very driven company,” Svangtun said of the privately held, Vancouver, Canada- based firm.
A sweet smell wafts through the processing area, where dozens of workers chatter amiably amid the din of industrial fans and knives clattering on tables as cantaloupes and grapefruit move down the lines.

Food and worker safety, a primary focus at the plant, is evident in the white lab coats and hair nets worn by the workers, the sensor- controlled faucets and sinks for handwashing, the sanitizing foot bath all who enter must step through and the water runoff all over the skid-proof floor from the ongoing washing of fruit.

Sun Rich Fresh Foods Inc. facility operations manager Jim Jaroszewski, left, with executive vice president and chief operating officer carl Svangtun in the lunchroom of the plant.

“We’re actually safer than cutting your own fruit,” Svangtun said, noting the constant cleansing of the product and the use of various types of cutting instruments for different operations performed on the fruit.

Once cut and again rinsed and drained, the fruit is weighed and then placed in pails of various sizes for delivery. Solutions are added to ensure freshness throughout the journey on refrigerated trucks to the ultimate destinations.

Sun Rich sells some fruit through retail channels, and is planning to expand that line. But the lion’s share of its production -  more than 40 million pounds per year from its facilities in Vancouver, Toronto, Los Angeles and now Reading – is sold through foodservice channels into family restaurants, airlines, hospitals, hotels and industry.

The fruit – honeydew, cantaloupe, pineapple, oranges, grapefruit, grapes and apples – is sold in a range of mixes and as single commodities.

Sun Rich acquires its products from many sources, and Svangtun said maintaining adequate supplies is challenging in a competitive environment.

“Our melons out of Central America were pressured by wet weather,” he explained by way of example. “If the supply goes down, the price goes up and the quality goes down. And you get less yield.” Other critical factors, such as a dependable work force, good distribution routes and proximity to customers, have been met by its selection of Reading for the facility, which was announced in October 2006.

Svangtun credited retired retailer Albert R. Boscov and his Our City Reading organization, and city officials, for their aid in attracting the firm and helping it get through the various challenges it faced in bringing the vision of the plant into reality.

“There always are challenges, but this was incredibly smooth because we and the community had the same goal,” he said.

That was a reference to job creation, and Svangtun emphasized that Sun Rich’s intent is to have the plant run by local people.

“We want people committed to the community, who’ll therefore be committed to the company,” he said. “They will understand the challenges to the community better than we can.”

BY JEFF OSTROWSKI

Palm Beach Post

A Deerfield Beach cosmetics company plans to move its plant to Palm Springs and hire up to 800 workers over the next five years.

Palm Beach County commissioners will vote Tuesday on a $24 million bond issue for Oxygen Development LLC. The money would come from the county’s share of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a stimulus package approved in February.

Oxygen Development already owns 16.5 acres of vacant land at 1525 S. Congress Ave. in Palm Springs. Now, it wants to build a 300,000-square-foot plant to develop and make its skin care and hair care products.

Oxygen Development head Philippe Cohen couldn’t be reached for comment, but Palm Springs Manager Karl Umberger said the company’s operations are spread over two buildings in Deerfield Beach.

Moving to Palm Springs would let Cohen build a new plant that’s closer to his workers, Umberger said.

“A lot of his employees actually live in this area, and they’re driving all the way to Deerfield,” Umberger said.

Oxygen Development hopes to begin construction by the end of the year, Umberger said. The company would employ 350 to 400 employees when it first moves here and plans to expand to 750 to 800 workers.

The average salary would be $34,500, according to the Business Development Board of Palm Beach County.

While many of the jobs would be low-paying, Oxygen Development also employs its share of higher-paid scientists and technicians who wear lab coats and work with microscopes and beakers, Umberger said.

Oxygen Development is asking the county to approve a Recovery Zone Facility Bond. The county received $54 million for the bonds but has yet to issue any, said Kevin Johns, the county’s economic development director.

Hector Ruiz recently bought Tommy's Cafe & Cabana Bar along Douglass Street through a loan from the city. The program invests in qualified businesses with a pool of money recycled from a previous similar loan program that originated with state funding.

By Don Spatz

Reading Eagle

Hector Ruiz became on of Reading’s newest business owners on May 31, buying the decades-old Tommy’s Café & Cabana Bar in the 200 block of Douglass Street, where he’d been the chef for most of 10 years.

The journey from being a fire hall dishwasher at 16 to proprietor – the first in his family even to own property – has been surreal, the 37-year-old Ruiz said as he sat among the bar’s old city memorabilia, including an old Reading Beer cooler that’s been there for at least 50 years and might be the only one still working.

But it took city financing to do the deal. Ruiz said he could not have taken over the business without it.

Ruiz is getting help from the city’s fledgling microloan program, offering a 3 percent fixed rate on loans from $1,000 to $35,000.

Begun in August, the loans can be taken for five to 10 years, and pay for such things as equipment, working capital, marketing, renovations or inventory.

And they can be used in conjunction with other financing.

Ruiz received $35,000 from the city, and financing from the state and the Community First Fund.

He’s applying the city money for startup costs and operating costs such as inventory and first payroll for his nine employees.

“It seemed so amazing that it happened,” he said. “What’s really amazing is that three agencies came together on something.”

Daniel S. Robinson, the city community development director whose department runs the program, said it’s gotten a lot of inquiries and several dozen businesses have filed preliminary applications.

So far, four loans have been made and others are pending, he said.

“I’ve been impressed with the people coming in – African-Americans, Hispanics, women who own businesses,” Robinson said.

He said the city gives preference to applications who would create new jobs, but that’s not a requirement.

“We want businesses to stay here, and others to come in,” he said.

Safeguards in place

Robinson is acutely aware of the city’s past problems in documenting and collecting business loans. City Council is debating whether to write off nearly $1.8 million in 16 loads from the 1990s, most of which are considered uncollectible.

Robinson said the new loan programs are run by the book. He said all are properly documented, and a third party – the nonprofit Community Initiative Development Corp. – does the underwriting and files the liens on the homes and properties to make sure there’s collateral.

“The CIDC makes the decisions and tells the applicants yes or no, so there are no conflicts,” Robinson said, referring to some previous loans that went to relatives of city officials without proper documentation.

“We’re running it like a bank,” he said. “We’re trying to take losing any money out of the equation.”

The city has $300,000 available for the loans, a pot that gets replenished as the money is paid back.

The money came from the state for similar loans years ago that have been paid back and the city is recycling it.

Meanwhile, Ruiz is making plans for the bar that has ample inside room as well as a double-deck cabana in a private patio out back.

The business will re-launch in early August as Sofrito Gastro Pub, he said.

Ruiz moved to Reading from Massachusetts in the 1990s and said he fell in love with the city.

“I’m hoping to be a part of the movement to bring Reading back to what it was,” he said.

By JEFF OSTROWSKI

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Palm Beach County commissioners today unanimously approved a $24 million bond issue for a Broward County cosmetics company that wants to build a plant in Palm Springs.

Oxygen Development LLC plans to move from Deerfield Beach and employ up to 800 workers. The money for the bond issue comes from the county’s share of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a federal stimulus package approved in February.

Oxygen Development owns 16.5 acres of vacant land at 1525 S. Congress Ave. in Palm Springs, Village Manager Karl Umberger said. It will use the money to build a 300,000-square-foot plant to develop and make skin and hair products.

Oxygen Development head Philippe Cohen told county commissioners that the plant would include 20,000 square feet of lab space. The company makes cosmetics for various brand names, he said.

Moving to Palm Springs would let Cohen build a new plant that’s closer to his workers, Umberger said.

“A lot of his employees actually live in this area, and they’re driving all the way to Deerfield,” Umberger said.

Privately held Oxygen Development hopes to begin construction by the end of the year, Umberger said. The company would employ 350 to 400 employees when it first moves and plans to expand to 750 to 800 workers.

The average salary would be $34,500, according to the Business Development Board of Palm Beach County.

While many of the jobs would be low-paying, Oxygen Development also employs higher-paid scientists and technicians, Umberger said.

The county approved a Recovery Zone Facility Bond for Oxygen Development. The county received $54 million for the bonds, and this is the first project under the program, said Kevin Johns, the county’s economic development director.

The largest facility of its kind in the United States, Goggle Works opened its doors in September 2005.