By RICK MILLER
Olean Star
ELLICOTTVILLE — The Cattaraugus County Industrial Development Agency approved inducements for a local developer Tuesday for a $6 million brownfield cleanup off River Street in Olean.
Developer Donald Benson of 1641 River Street LLC has applied to clean up a 25-acre site off River Street that is split by Interstate 86. There are 18.9 acres on the north side of the highway and 6.4 acres on the south side.
Benson, who owns Benson Construction and Development Corp., will receive a sales tax exemption of up to $480,000. A county legislator from Allegany, Benson has participated in other local certified brownfield cleanups.
The cleanup will involve removing oil-contaminated soil and piping that was associated with the former tank farm that once occupied the area.
IDA Chairman Thomas Buffamante said the River Street property is one of the largest available industrial and commercial sites in the City of Olean.
IDA board member Brent Driscoll said the site also has access to I-86 and the nearby railroad, as well as utilities, water and sewer. “There isn’t that much industrial land left in Olean,” he added.
Corey Wiktor, IDA executive director, said as a certified clean brownfield site, a new owner would also be protected from future lawsuits involving contaminants. The IDA has approved similar tax breaks for seven other brownfield projects in the same area.
The property is part of the Exxon-Mobil settlement involving hundreds of acres of property in North Olean that was contaminated by the former Socony-Vacuum Oil Co. in the early 1900s. The settlement area stretches from Buffalo Street to Olean Creek and covers almost 900 acres. Exxon-Mobil is the successor company to Socony Vacuum.
Benson previously purchased property from the IDA between Homer Street and I-86 which he cleaned up and leased to a company that installed a solar farm there.
The developer will also receive state brownfield tax credits for the cleanup, according to Wiktor.
Benson has not specified any plans for the property. Once it is certified as a remediated brownfield site, it is expected to be listed for sale.
While 1641 River Street LLC has only one employee, and no new jobs are proposed, Wiktor cited several reasons to justify the sales tax abatement. It’s not a cash grant and does not reduce current property taxes. The cleanup also removes a pollution risk to the nearby Olean Creek
Wiktor noted the inducement is for sales tax exemption only. There is no property tax abatement. The property has a full market value of $43,000 and taxes are about $1,700.
The IDA board also accepted an application for a $3.5 million adaptive reuse project for the Armes Block on West Main Street in Gowanda that was built in 1904.
White Haven Holdings and 1 W. Main LLC, owned by Jared W. White of Buffalo, a Gowanda native, plans to renovate the building that will house a barber academy, a cocktail lounge and other businesses on the first floor and basement level. There will also be four or five apartments on the second floor.
White, a barber, has received a $1.3 million grant through NY Forward. He is seeking sales and mortgage tax exemptions as well as a 10-year adaptive reuse payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT). A public hearing on the project will be scheduled and the IDA will address the request next month.
If approved by the IDA board, the project would receive $280,000 in sales tax exemptions, $37,500 in mortgage tax abatement and a 10-year PILOT, which would save about $253,000 in property taxes.
Wiktor also reported on a recent tour of the Cimolai-HY LLC plant on the former Siemens Energy property in North Olean with Olean Mayor Amy B. Sherburne and Olean Community Development Director Keri Kerper.
The steel fabrication company invested $70 million in the former Dresser-Rand property in 2022 after Siemens Closed the plant two years earlier, furloughing more than 500 workers.
Today, Wiktor said, Cimolai has more than 200 employees at the site and plans to hire about 10 new employees a month over the next six to seven months.
Many of the former Siemens employees either got other jobs or retired. Not as many of the former Siemens employees sought jobs at Cimolai as were expected, Wiktor said. As a result, the company is hiring more people who are moving to Olean to buy a home and raise a family, he said.
Wiktor reviewed with the board the 63 projects the IDA offered tax breaks to during 2021-25 that were worth a whopping $1.6 billion. That averages out to more than $300 million in new investment each year, he said.
Two mega projects, the $618 million Alle-Catt Wind Farm in Farmersville and Freedom in 2025, and the $505 million Great Lakes Cheese plant in Franklinville in 2021, make up the lion’s share of the projects.
The projects included manufacturing, renewable energy, tourism, commercial and institutional.
The total investment in 2021 was $534,908,414, 2022 – $100,139,143, 2023 – $160,612,728, 2024 – 196,374,935 and 2025 – $650,305,905.
Auditor Denise Veloski of Johnson, McKowiak & Associates LLP, reported the IDA “has a good grip on its finances. Its balance sheet increased from $2.4 million to $4.2 million from 2024 to 2025. That $1.7 million has been invested.
Half of a $6 million fee for Alle-Catt Wind’s PILOT application has been received as of February. There are two more installments, one in 2027 and one in 2028, Wiktor said.
