SYRACUSE — Helen Hanna Casey, CEO of Howard Hanna Real Estate Services, grew up in the business, earning her real-estate license when she was 18.

So did her brother and sister. “Our parents wanted us to do that as protection, in case something happened,” she recalls.

Casey chatted with CNYBJ on a recent visit to Syracuse.

They wanted the children prepared in case something happened to their father, Howard Hanna Jr., the founder and namesake of the real-estate services firm that began in 1957 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, she explains.

What happened was that he continued to grow the business, adding new services. In 1980, he added title insurance, she says. Within five years, the company had added mortgages and insurance to services offered by Howard Hanna.

In 1991, Casey was named president, part of a leadership team that includes her brother, Chairman Howard (Hoddy) Hanna III, and sister, Annie Hanna Cestra, the company’s executive VP and COO.

Their father, now 98, carries the title of founder and still visits company offices.

Howard Hanna Real Estate entered the Central New York real-estate market in 2016 with the acquisition of Realty USA. That was one of seven major acquisitions the firm has made in the past 15 years, Casey says. In addition, she says the firm has made 10 mid-sized acquisitions in the same period and, “a lot of smaller ones.”

Today, Howard Hanna Real Estate Services has 270 offices in eight states.

However, Casey points out, it’s not the number of offices that count in the business, it’s volume of sales in dollars and units that indicate the true of size of a real estate company. By number of units sold, Casey says, Howard Hanna is the third largest in the country. 

Others have higher sales when measured by dollars, because other markets have more expensive homes.

That’s a mixed blessing, she explains, because higher home prices mean there are more real-estate agents trying to make a living in the market and, “they are also higher-expense markets.”

In contrast, she says, “most of the cities we’re in are Rust Belt cities.” They are being restructured and rebuilt, she adds.

To find success in such markets, Howard Hanna has brought distinctive offerings, Casey says. She points to the firm’s money-back guarantee that applies to homes costing less than $700,000. That brings some comfort to skittish buyers, she says. (“Buyers above $750,000 don’t want a money back guarantee,” she adds. They are more confident about major purchases.)

Looking at trends, Casey sees some encouraging ones. First, the fear that real-estate agents would be swept aside by the Internet the way, say, travel agents have been, seems to have abated. In fact, she says a higher percentage of buyers and sellers are using real-estate agents than they were in 2004.

She thinks the difference might be that while you can buy something on the Internet and return it if not satisfied, that’s not so easy to do with a house.

What is most important to today’s consumers is customer experience, she says. That makes her company’s one-stop shopping model right for the times. “They don’t want to have to go through all the experiences.” Instead, she puts real-estate service alongside craft brewing and craft distilling, where consumers have shown a preference for a more personal touch.

She is also heartened by the way millennials are entering the housing market. Research shows they are buying homes looking to reach the same standard as their parents. They prefer walking neighborhoods, particularly before children arrive, she says. Later, they have the same concerns for “schools and backyards,” as past generations.

As for the future, while she and her brother and sister led the company into the 21st Century, Casey says there are already six members of the next generation of her family stepping into roles at the Pittsburgh–based company.

Most are moving into management positions, Casey says, some taking on roles made possible by the company’s continuing expansion. There is, she says, a succession plan in place to move leadership of the business her father founded 61 years ago to the next generation.

However, she adds that she and her siblings plan to stay involved. “We will never be retired in the sense that we don’t come into the office anymore.”     

SYRACUSE — “I used to dream we would have a jewelry place in here,” says Dale Colella, standing behind the counter of Colella Gallery on the ground floor of the Marriott Syracuse Downtown hotel.

For decades, Colella Gallery was a fixture at 123 East Willow St. in Syracuse. The old brownstone stood apart on the north side of the street; behind was only Interstate 690. That’s where Dale Colella went to work fulltime for his uncle Nicholas (Nick) Colella in 1982.

Before that, he had helped out his uncle, who in turn introduced him to the jewelry and antique trade.

Nick Colella passed away in 2008 and Dale Colella kept the business going, selling by appointment only to customers who learned about the store through word of mouth. He sold off the antiques in 2009 and focused the business solely on jewelry.

In May, 2016 he was at an event at the Hotel Syracuse, now the Marriott Syracuse Downtown. The Onondaga Historical Association was honoring Ed Riley for his work restoring the hotel. The work was far from done, but the Persian Terrace was in good enough shape to host the event.

Colella was impressed by the developer’s humility during the event, how he gave credit to everyone else involved in the project. Following the dinner, Colella and his wife, Pattie, peeked through the hanging sheets of plastic that separated the finished areas from those still undergoing renovation. “You know,” he said to his wife, “this would be a perfect fit.”

Moments later, a Marriott representative appeared at his elbow and offered the Colellas a tour. As they went through the far-from-completed hotel, Colella says he could see where it could work for a jewelry store.

“I wrote a letter to Ed Riley sharing my vision of a high-end jewelry gallery in the hotel.” After some negotiations about precisely which space would work — Colella wanted to make sure the new gallery would have an entrance from the hotel, not just the street — the two reached an agreement. Colella brought in contractor Rick Capozzi of Burke Contracting to create a space based on Collela’s ideas. “I designed this to be like it was built when the hotel was,” Colella says.

The gallery moved to the hotel in mid-November and Colella sold the brownstone in early December for $435,000. The buyer was OIP Holdings, which Colella says plans to renovate it into a high-end Italian restaurant.

Being in the Marriott, with visibility and foot traffic, is a big change from selling by appointment only through referrals, and sales have climbed with the new location. “Our first quarter here we had a marked increase,” Colella says.

The display cases show a mix of new and estate jewelry. They include tiny women’s art-deco watches dating from the 1920s to modern pieces from Italian designers. One necklace with a 7.18 caret emerald surrounded by 9.5 carets of diamonds is a new creation that carries a price tag of $35,000.

But, Colella explains, at Christmas he sold a simple pair of estate earrings for $15. “They were gold, 14-caret.”

Colella, who is joined at work by gemologist Sano Ramos, says his experience and the relationships he has built over the years, allow him to compete with large chains as well as other locally owned jewelers.

“We can maintain quality at a lower price point,” he says. Part of that is because he does not have to pay mall-level rents. Another is how he treats vendors. “Just as you cultivate clientele on that side of the counter, you cultivate purveyors on this side.”

That cultivation is helped by his ability to pay cash up front when he sees a piece he likes. “We don’t borrow money. We have no debt,” Colella says. That gives him a buying advantage when the competition may be asking to pay in 30 or 60 days.

Another advantage Colella presses is that he does not sell a lower level of jewelry that chains may in order to hit certain price points. “We don’t need phony sales.”

Adapting to the new location, Colella is running television commercials for the first time in the gallery’s history. The ads, to appear on a local network affiliate, were written by Colella.

“My intent was to introduce ourselves to people who don’t know my family’s been in the jewelry business for 70 years,” Colella says, “and to let them know we’ve now changed to an open-door policy.”

After that, he says, it’s up to people to visit. “I think once they come in, the jewelry speaks for itself.”

SYRACUSE — Laci’s Tapas Bar, a popular eatery located in Syracuse’s Hawley-Green neighborhood, has expanded its parking and is getting some help to boost the safety and security of customers using it.

“We just purchased a lot behind our restaurant to add more parking. And we’d just like to make that lot safer. It’s very dark,” says Cindy Seymour, who co-owns Laci’s with Laura Serway. Laci’s has about 24 employees, in addition to Seymour and Serway.

KeyBank (NYSE: KEY) has awarded Laci’s Tapas Bar a $5,000 grant to install security lighting and cameras around its property. The funding is part of Key’s 2018 “Small Business is Key” contest, the bank announced May 14. It awarded the money to Laci’s in part “for its commitment to Syracuse and the Central New York community.”

The new parking lot will add about 25 parking spaces to what Laci’s already has for parking, Seymour says. Laci’s employees and customers will use the additional spaces. The bar and restaurant is located at 304 Hawley Ave. in Syracuse. 

 “We want to light it up … can’t have too many cameras,” she says.

Laci’s hasn’t chosen a contractor to install the lighting and cameras, according to Seymour.

Serway and Seymour opened Laci’s Tapas Bar in July 2010. It offers chef-crafted tapas and an array of beer, wine, and cocktails. Tapas are snacks, canapés, or finger food that originated in Spain.

The $5,000 grant is one of 14 awarded to businesses throughout KeyBank’s footprint in recognition of Small Business Month.

“We’re thrilled to be able to recognize small businesses that positively impact our communities,” Gregory Riley, KeyBank relationship manager, said in a bank news release. “Laci’s has demonstrated their commitment to Syracuse and Central New York through their community driven focus and philanthropic efforts.”

Philanthropy

Serway and Seymour have “invested heavily” in their neighborhood, according to KeyBank. Since 2014, they’ve bought and restored a “handful” of boarded-up, vacant homes on Green Street. Their commitment to the Hawley-Green district has encouraged other businesses, such as Syracuse Soap Works and Thanos Import Market, to move to the area, the bank added.

Seymour also founded a nonprofit called Serenity for Women, which helps women who are facing day-to-day challenges or transitioning to life after the military. In 2017, she worked with the Rescue Mission of Syracuse to build two homes, the “first transitional housing built for homeless women veterans in the area,” per the release.

They started a fund at the Q Center at 617 W. Genesee St. in Syracuse. The center, a program of ACR Health, is described as “a safe place for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth, their families and allies to gather,” according to the ACR Health website. 

The fund, established in memory of a past employee at Laci’s, helps college students through the nonprofit ACR Health, located at 627 W. Genesee St. in Syracuse.

ACR Health is a community-based organization which provides support services for individuals with chronic diseases, including HIV/AIDS, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, substance-use disorders, and mental illness.

Seymour and Serway also host an annual anniversary party at Laci’s called the Giveback Celebration, which benefits a local nonprofit organization. The restaurant allows the public to choose the charity on Facebook and each winner has received an average of $14,000 in proceeds, according to the news release. 

Over the last seven years, Laci’s has given more than $100,000 to various local non-profits through its Giveback Celebration. This year’s event is scheduled for Aug. 16 at Laci’s. 

Laci’s Tapas Bar is regularly open Tuesday to Thursday from 4-10 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 4-11 p.m. It is closed on Sunday and Monday. 

UTICA — The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has recognized the owners of a Utica company for the firm’s growth.

The SBA selected the owners of Utica–based Metal Solutions, Inc. as the Syracuse district winners of 2018 Small Business Person of the Year Award. 

Nominated by NBT Bank, NA, the SBA chose Catherine Thiaville and Joseph Cattadoris, Jr. for the award “based on their company’s long-term success, and growth in sales and employees,” the SBA said in a news release.

Metal Solutions in 2017 used the SBA 504 program with the New York Business Development Corporation and NBT Bank, NA to refinance the Broad Street property and invest in their operational processes, equipment, and employees.

The SBA 504 loan program provides funding to purchases related to real estate and equipment, according to the SBA website.

The SBA Syracuse district honored Thiaville and Cattadoris during its annual awards luncheon held May 2 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel in DeWitt as part of SBA’s National Small Business Week observance. 

About the company

Metal Solutions is a manufacturer of precision-fabricated, sheet-metal products serving industries that include mass transit and companies across the Northeast and Canada that provide heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning services. 

The company began as New Hartford Sheet Metal in a small garage in 1954 by Joseph Cattadoris Sr. and Henry Niemczyk “with only $800 in capital and equipment.” 

Metal Solutions moved into its current location at 1821 Broad St. in Utica in 1993. 

The second-generation sibling team of Thiaville and Cattadoris, Jr. has “guided the growth of Metal Solutions into its seventh decade of success,” with 54,000 square feet of manufacturing space and 80 employees. 

Metal Solutions holds ISO 9001:2015; New York State Woman-Owned Business Enterprise; and U.S. Department of Transportation Disadvantaged Business Enterprise certifications.