CANTON — Renovation work on St. Lawrence University’s Appleton Arena will start “this spring” following the conclusion of the current hockey season, the university announced in late January.

St. Lawrence University has chosen Northland Associates Inc. of Clay as the construction manager for the upcoming project.

Northland Associates has previously worked on other projects at St. Lawrence, including the Johnson Hall of Science, Kirk Douglas Hall, Peterson-Kermani Performance Hall, and Sullivan Student Center, the university said in a release.

St. Lawrence hopes to have this phase of the project complete by the start of the 2019-20 college hockey season, Ryan Deuel, the university’s director of media relations and strategic communications, said in an email response to a CNYBJ inquiry.

The renovations will provide St. Lawrence’s NCAA Division I men’s and women’s hockey programs with a “superior” athletic facility, the school contends. 

A second phase of the project will also expand Appleton Arena to support the Saints’ NCAA Division III men and women’s lacrosse, field hockey, softball and the men and women’s rowing teams. That portion of the renovation will begin as additional fundraising is completed.

A little more than one year ago, St. Lawrence embarked on a study of Appleton Arena to “enhance the appeal” of the facility for both athletes and the fans. 

It selected HOK, an architectural firm for designing sports venues, to conduct the study. HOK delivered its findings to the school’s steering, planning, and oversight committee as well as its campus user group in the fall. The firm also handled the design work for the project, Deuel said.

First opened in 1951, Appleton Arena is regarded as one of St. Lawrence University’s “significant heritage facilities.” 

Improvements will include a new entrance, widening concourses, expanding concessions, additional social spaces including the Legends of Appleton room, and improving both broadcast and live-streaming technologies. 

It will also include a strength and conditioning center named in memory of 1974 graduate Michael “Buddy” Cornacchia, who died in 2014.

“The character of Appleton Arena has aged over the years like a finely crafted historical home. In the NCAA Division I ice hockey world, it shares the comparable essence of Wrigley Field or Fenway Park. And like those beloved landmarks, renewed in every generation, it needs a timely upgrade,” St. Lawrence University President William L. Fox said in the release. “As one of St. Lawrence’s venerable and distinctive structures, Appleton is the ‘rink of dreams’ for North Country youth and the ‘forever home’ of St. Lawrence hockey. And that’s why this project, envisioned by generous Laurentian families, is so important to our University’s sense of pride and tradition.”

Donor-funded

Two major financial commitments secured last summer as part of the Campaign for Every Laurentian “put the project in motion,” the university said. They included a $10 million donation from 1974 alumnus Tom Dolan and the Dolan Family Foundation.

In addition, the Torrey and MacAllaster families — in memory of William A. (Bill) Torrey Sr. — provided a $1.5 million donation. Since then, St. Lawrence has secured additional “major” gifts, raising close to $17 million to date for the completely donor-funded Appleton-renovation project.

The Appleton Arena project is supported by The Campaign for Every Laurentian, “the largest comprehensive fundraising initiative in the more than 160-year history of St. Lawrence University.” With a fundraising goal of $225 million, the effort will support four priorities: “Endowing Our Future, Learning for the 21st Century, the Power of Connections, and Campus Stewardship as well as continued support for the St. Lawrence Fund,” the school said. 

LOWVILLE — Lewis County Economic Development/Industrial Development Agency (IDA) plans to move into a building in Lowville that it bought last year and is currently developing to spur business growth in Lewis County.

The move is slated for April, says Brittany Davis, marketing specialist at Lewis County Economic Development.

“If we’re managing the building, we want to be up there as soon as possible. It’s just easier,” says Davis.

The organization is currently located at 7642 N. State St. in Lowville. The Lewis County Chamber of Commerce will also move into the coworking/shared office space of the newly purchased building that the organizations are calling the Center for Business. 

The organizations want to make it a “one-stop shop,” so they can “manage the coworking space, manage the building,” says Cheyenne Steria, project manager for the Center for Business. 

Steria also serves as a finance technical specialist for the Lewis County IDA. Both Davis and Steria spoke to CNYBJ on March 4. 

Occupancy

Lewis County Economic Development/IDA is developing the building — the former Climax Manufacturing Co. facility at 7840 State Route 26 — into a multi-tenant, mixed-use facility.

The Center for Business already has two tenants leasing nearly 90,000 square feet of the available 145,000 square feet of open manufacturing space, per a news release about the Center for Business.

So far, Hanover, Pennsylvania–based Ox Industries (formally Carthage Specialty Paperboard) is leasing 80,000 square feet of manufacturing space for warehousing. And, NRG Group, a telecommunications contractor formerly located in New Bremen in Lewis County, is leasing 8,000 square feet of space. 

Together, the two firms currently have about 20 employees working at the Center for Business.

The facility also has 15,000 square feet of office space, which will soon include Lewis County Economic Development/IDA and the Lewis County Chamber of Commerce.

A portion of the office space will serve as shared coworking space, where business owners, entrepreneurs or remote workers can rent working space and use amenities such as high-speed internet and printer services “on a daily, monthly or yearly basis,” per the release.

Lewis County Economic Development can tailor the building for manufacturing, light industry, and coworking/shared office space for businesses and nonprofit organizations in Lewis County.

“There are a variety of prices and we’re hoping to meet a lot of different needs,” Steria says, when asked renting space in the Center for Business.

Tenants lease their space with the IDA, she adds.

Building purchase

Lewis County Economic Development/IDA bought the former Climax Manufacturing Co. facility from Carthage Specialty Paperboard in a deal that closed Oct. 17, 2018. The purchase price was $800,000, says Steria. 

Carthage Specialty Paperboard’s parent DeltaPoint Capital Management, a private-equity firm in Rochester, also owned Climax Manufacturing, Steria confirms, when asked about the building’s recent history.

Carthage Specialty Paperboard had filed for bankruptcy and was later purchased by Ox Industries about a week after the building purchase closed last October, according to Steria.

Lewis County Economic Development/IDA used some of its economic-development fund and grant financing to make the purchase, says Steria. 

The state had awarded the organization grant funding through the North Country Regional Economic Development Council for its efforts to establish a commerce park on property near the building it bought for the Center for Business, she notes.

“We transferred that grant for the purchase of this building,” Steria adds.

Reason for purchase

Lewis County Economic Development/IDA had been focused on establishing a commerce park on site, near the Center for Business, says Davis.

“But our IDA board really pushed the organization to look into the purchase of the building because we didn’t want the building to just be left empty,” she adds.

The agency eventually decided that it wanted to create a multi-tenant facility because it understands how “difficult it would be” to just bring in one company with 100 jobs.

It pursued a plan to create a multi-tenant facility where it could section off the building for businesses that could bring five or 10 jobs and occupy up to 12,000 square feet at a time. 

“That’s something that’s a little bit more attainable for us,” says Davis. 

The commerce park that the organization had been thinking about is still a possibility in the future, according to Steria.