June 28th, 2018
HORNELL, NY – RailHead Brewery, who have been in business over 4 years now, has sought out the help of Hornell’s IDA for expansion. According to IDA consultant Shawn Hogan, the brewery would like to expand their product to a regional presence and bottle it for commercial sales for other area restaurants and bars.
With the limited space they have to deal with now, expanding would be out of the question unless they could purchase an adjacent vacant building. “They have had their eye on the vacant building next door to them for a while, the old New Life Printers,” said consultant Shawn Hogan, “but at this stage of the game it would be a huge investment and they didn’t feel they could be conventionally funded at this point. So they came to the IDA with a proposal for a long term lease/purchase agreement.”
Under the agreement, the IDA will purchase the building and RailHead would be responsible for all maintenance and taxes. “We have a policy as an agency to not take a property off the tax rolls. Anything we do always increases the cities tax base so the building will still keep its assessed value of $149,500, which would keep a combined tax rate of $6,000 for the county, school, and city. We also plan on increasing their pilot by 2% every year. Anytime throughout the lease agreement, whether it is 10 or 20 years, they would have the option to outright buy the building.”
According to Hogan, every year they have been in business they have at least doubled their sales and they are maxed out as far as space goes for increasing production. They plan on adding 2 part time and 2 full time employees after the acquisition to meet their demand. With the high cost of outright buying the building through conventional methods, they could not also afford all the necessary equipment needed to brew their product.
In other IDA news, Joe Rose was selected to tear down the old Sunset restaurant at a cost of $20,973. He was the low bid out of 3 bidders. The IDA already has over $13,000 invested in the building on an asbestos survey.
The IDA also plans on completing the paperwork in the next week to purchase the Trikeenan building near Shawmut Park. With this move renegotiations can take place with Elgin Butler on a new pilot and lease so the business can get back on its feet.
Lin industries still needs a cost evaluation on their proposed expansion on their building in the South Yards. IDA head Jim Griffin said that they also plan on cleaning up a lot of brush and debris between Lin and Grey Manufacturing to make the area more appealing.
And finally, a resolution was passed to forgive Amexstra on the remainder of their lease as long as they meet a certain hiring goal and also take responsibility for their own repairs and maintenance. Originally they had agreed to a 10 year lease at $10,000 a year, with which about 5 years remain.
