Region is buoyed by Micron project

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Even as stock markets continue to make all-time highs, there has been a lot of chatter about national economic uncertainty this year with slowing job growth and concern about the potential impact of tariffs, continued inflation, and most recently the federal-government shutdown.

But current conditions and the outlook for the Central New York economy and business climate are not really showing those problems, says one local banking expert.

“I’ll be honest there hasn’t been much shift. We’re not really seeing much negativity,” says Lindsay Weichert, Community Bank, N.A.’s regional president for the Central New York market. “Margins are really holding up. Revenues and sales are holding up well, pretty much across our book of clients.”

Weichert spoke with CNYBJ on Oct. 16. In her position, she is responsible for leading Community Bank’s business development and community-engagement activities while ensuring effective communication across all bank and non-bank lines of business in the Central New York region.

Weichert says tariffs have not yet created many impacts for her bank’s clients, inflation has steadied some, and interest rates have ticked down in recent months.

“We’re still seeing kind of just the normal business cycle. It’s end of year; folks are evaluating equipment purchases. [Clients] still seem kind of unphased by the economy. So we’re not really seeing any pullbacks, anything like that,” she says.

One indicator Weichert looks at to gauge how businesses are doing, is their credit-line usage.

“You expect that if there is broad concern with the economy, they may borrow, throw some cash into an account, and sort of sit tight,” she explains. The bank is not seeing that. Credit-line usage is “totally within a normal range. It’s actually down a little bit from a couple months back,” Weichert notes.

The Micron effect

“It’s really kind of business as usual. And I think we do have a pretty significant advantage here in Syracuse relative to some of the rest of the country with Micron,” Weichert says, referring to Micron Technology’s (NASDAQ: MU) project to build a massive semiconductor campus at the White Pines Commerce Park in the town of Clay. “That provides some pretty good certainty… it’s pretty nice to know that by the end of next year we’ll have 5,000 construction workers on site.”

Even before that, the stage is being set within the community.

“We’re really starting to build out a talent pipeline …you can see it in the higher education space between OCC, Syracuse University, CenterState CEO, all these different folks, MACNY, kind of gearing up to really focus on the apprenticeship program and build on the talent pipeline,” says Weichert. “That sort of feeds on itself and attracts more folks into our market. And then just the multiplier effect. You get 5,000 people as an influx into the community, there is no way they’re not spending a couple bucks while they’re here.”

Micron says it expects to create 9,000 jobs directly over the next 20 years or so.

“But then that multiplier effect is like 5 or 6 [times that] for all the ancillary businesses. So, all those folks are renting and purchasing homes. And going out and patronizing the restaurants, and so on and so forth,” says Weichert.

That helps provide a foundation that there is going to be a certain amount of economic growth going forward in our area and helps allay some concerns about the variability of the broader national and global economy.