BINGHAMTON — Up until a few months ago, Remlik’s Grille & Oyster Bar, an upscale seafood restaurant in downtown Binghamton, had a problem. The tiny plants that chefs were using as garnishes kept perishing quickly. And they were entirely too expensive.

Enter Joe Rigoroso, the man behind a new Binghamton–based startup called Infiniti Greens.

Rigoroso approached the restaurant and gave its owners a small sample of his microgreens. Remlik’s immediately ditched its previous supplier.

“After putting the greens to use, they seemed to hold up without dying,” Kelley Wesoloski, one of the owners of Remlik’s, tells CNYBJ. “And these were cheaper and better.”

Infiniti Greens is barely a year old, but Rigoroso’s microgreen business is already beginning to establish a foothold in the Binghamton market. Rigoroso, a current student at Binghamton University, is contacting local restaurants such as Remlik’s and convincing them one by one to become customers. In just a few months, he has landed six local restaurants as customers placing regular orders.

Rigoroso is capitalizing on two growing food-industry trends: urban farming and a demand for locally sourced food. Rigoroso grows the microgreens, which are small vegetables or herbs left to grow for just one or two weeks, by himself at the Koffman Southern Tier Incubator, at 120 Hawley St. in Binghamton. The greens sit on shelves stacked on top of each other inside a lab under grow lights. He then delivers the microgreens to local restaurants that serve them on their menus.

“Because those movements are starting to grow, I think I’m getting in at a good time,” Rigoroso says.

Recently, restaurants have begun to use microgreens as trendy garnishes for their color, texture, and added flavor. Bon Appétit magazine proclaimed in 2013 the tiny plants were the trendy garnishes of the moment, popping up on plates of many of the magazine’s best restaurants list that year.

“Every entree on the menu, including our sushi, uses microgreens as garnishes,” Wesoloski says.

Infiniti Greens offers at least 15 types of microgreens, including Swiss chard, kale, arugula, peas, sunflowers, and cilantro. 

The business currently has one employee — Rigoroso himself, who is the founder, CEO, accountant, and delivery person. He is a senior at Binghamton University, majoring in business management with a minor in environmental studies. When he is not in school, he spends the rest of his time biking from his apartment in downtown Binghamton to the Southern Tier Incubator, where he will run the business for at least the next year. The new $19 million incubator encompasses 35,000 square feet of offices, high-tech labs, wet labs, dry labs, common areas, and co-working spaces to encourage collaboration between companies. It was built to provide a “supportive environment for entrepreneurs and startup companies,” according to Binghamton University.

How he got started

Rigoroso, who hails from Long Island, started growing microgreens for his own personal use in January 2016 after he watched YouTube videos about urban farming. Rigoroso is a self-described “garden nerd” and the microgreens were an attempt at living sustainably by growing everything he eats himself. 

“I wanted to stay away from the supermarkets,” Rigoroso says. “That food is expensive and I really didn’t know where greens were coming from.”

Soon after he started growing, Rigoroso’s friends began clamoring for his microgreens, which made him think he could turn his small urban farm into a business. 

He has since won an entrepreneurship competition at Binghamton University. In July of this year, Infiniti Greens was accepted into the Southern Tier Incubator, which opened in June. And in October, the company was featured in “Made in Broome,” a public-relations campaign started by The Agency, a prominent economic development organization in Broome County, meant to highlight local businesses.

Even as other students leave the state following graduation, Rigoroso intends to stay in Binghamton and work on Infiniti Greens full time after he completes his studies in May 2018, keeping Infiniti Greens local. Eventually, Rigoroso would like to own a greenhouse in the area as a permanent location for the business. 

“I love the community here, you can really get to know everyone,” says Rigoroso. “A big part of this is benefiting the community.”

Most of Infiniti Greens’ revenue comes from local restaurants with weekly orders. In total, Rigoroso has six regular customers, including Burger Mondays, The Colonial, Food Fusion Bar & Grill, P.S. Restaurant, and Nezuntoz Café, in addition to a few restaurants that place sporadic orders. 

So far, the business has paid for itself. Because Rigoroso doesn’t have student loans to pay off, he does not pay himself. He reinvests all revenue back into the business. So far, he has generated about $1,000 in revenue.

Additionally, Rigoroso sells his microgreens at the Broome County Regional Farmers Market and in one retail location, Open Barn Market. Infiniti Greens also offers subscription plans for customers who want microgreens delivered to their home or office.

Going forward, Rigoroso plans to grow the business by increasing his customer base of local eateries and expanding into additional retail locations. He does not want to take on investors, although he says he is confident he could raise a significant sum of money. Instead, he wants to grow the business “slowly but surely” — and by himself.                 

CORTLAND — The Automotive Lift Institute (ALI) announced that it formally opened its new headquarters and LiftLab near Cortland on Oct. 12 with a grand-opening celebration.

ALI says it is an organization “dedicated to the safe design, construction, installation, service, inspection, and operation of vehicle lifts used in automotive and heavy-duty vehicle repair shops throughout North America.” ALI offers a wide range of vehicle lift safety training resources and materials.

The new 8,500-square-foot headquarters at 3699 Luker Road in the town of Cortlandville is more than four times larger than the organization’s previous Cortland office, according to an ALI news release. It includes 3,475 square feet of renovated office and conference space, as well as a modern classroom for up to 20 participants.

The grand opening was attended by ALI members, lift inspectors, suppliers, and other guests from the vehicle lift and workplace safety industries, 

The organization says that growth of ALI lift-safety initiatives like the ALI Lift Inspector Certification Program “drove the need for a larger multipurpose facility.”

A key feature of the new building is its new LiftLab. ALI member manufacturers have provided and installed 12 vehicle lifts in the “expansive” LiftLab area. They range from the smallest motorcycle lift to the most common two-post style — all the way up to heavy-duty inground and mobile column lifts. 

This is the only facility in North America that brings together such a broad range of operational lifts from various manufacturers and makes them available for hands-on industry training, the institute contends.

“Through the generous support of the ALI member companies that produce North America’s certified vehicle lifts, we are able to facilitate opportunities for candidate lift inspectors, product safety engineers and others to come to a single location to examine two-post, multi-post, scissors, inground, mobile column and low-rise lifts,” R.W. (Bob) O’Gorman, ALI president, noted in the release. “This will enable lift inspector candidates to more expediently meet the requirements of the ALI Lift Inspector Certification Program, which will help address increasing customer demand. At the same time, we can improve the technical skills and knowledge of the experts charged with testing and certifying future vehicle lifts.”

ALI was started by nine lift manufacturers in 1945 and had its office in New York City until relocating to Indialantic, Florida, in 1993. ALI then moved its headquarters to Cortland in 2005 and has since grown from two employees to eight as the organization has expanded its safety-focused activities. Membership has also grown — there are now 21 member companies and six non-member firms producing ALI certified gold label lifts. 

The organization adds that there are 465 ALI certified lift inspectors and a total of 842 individuals from around the world currently participating in some stage of the certification process. 

SYRACUSE — Hartford Fire Insurance Company recently renewed its lease of 15,000 square feet of office space at One Park Place — the 10-story, 300,000-square-foot, Class A office building at 300 S. State St. in downtown Syracuse.

Peter Finn and Marty Dowd CBRE/Syracuse, with Roger Christensen of CBRE/Minneapolis, represented the tenant, the real-estate firm said in a news release. Financial terms of the lease were not provided.

Hartford Fire Insurance Co. offers auto and fire insurance products and services.

One Park Place, which opened in 1983, is one of the largest office buildings in Syracuse. Building tenants include Disability Management Services Inc., the IRS, and NBT Bank.

Hotels in Jefferson County were slightly fuller in September compared to a year ago, according to a recent report.

The hotel occupancy rate (rooms sold as a percentage of rooms available) in the county rose 1.7 percent to 64.6 percent in September from 63.5 percent in the year-ago month, according to STR, a Tennessee–based hotel market data and analytics company. It’s the second straight monthly increase in Jefferson County’s occupancy rate.

Revenue per available room (RevPar), a key industry indicator that measures how much money hotels are bringing in per available room, jumped 6.1 percent to $64.66 this September from $60.95 in September 2016. 

Average daily rate (or ADR), which represents the average rental rate for a sold room, increased 4.3 percent to $100.11 in September from $95.97 a year earlier. 

Year to date, Jefferson County’s occupancy rate is down 1.7 percent to 53.7 percent compared to the same period in 2016, while its RevPar is up 0.7 percent to $53.08. The county’s ADR has risen 2.5 percent year to date to $98.77, according to STR.         

SYRACUSE — Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner says the first phase of the Joint Schools Construction Board (JSCB) project is complete. 

The effort resulted in four “fully renovated” schools throughout the Syracuse City School District (SCSD), along with the completion of “smaller” renovation projects, Miner’s office said in a news release issued Oct. 26. 

The project’s second phase will focus on additional renovation projects at schools throughout the district. 

The first phase of the JSCB project resulted in full renovations of four schools. They included H.W. Smith Pre-K-8 School, Dr. Weeks Elementary School, the Public Service Leadership High School at Fowler, and the Institute of Technology at Syracuse Central. 

Crews handled more than $150 million in work during the course of the project. Additionally, they completed smaller renovation projects at Clary Middle School and Bellevue Academy, Miner’s office said.

The average building in the SCSD is 72 years old, the office said, citing a 2012 report from the Albany–based Conference of Big 5 School Districts. Five of the district’s 35 buildings were built before 1920. 

Second phase

Phase II of the JSCB authorized $300 million in funding for up to 20 projects. The funding is estimated to cover about one-third of the district’s identified building-repair needs. 

The board, codified in the phase II enabling legislation, includes Miner; Jaime Alicea, superintendent of the Syracuse City School District; three members Miner appointed; and two members Alicea appointed, according to Miner’s office.

“Critically important to the JSCB project is our commitment to minority and women contracting goals, as well as local hiring. We exceeded our goals during phase I, and I look forward to meeting the higher standard set by the board for phase II,” Miner added. 

Phase I of the JSCB had a 9 percent minority-owned and 6 percent women-owned enterprise contracting goal. Those numbers were “exceeded,” as minority-owned contractors handled 12.5 percent of the work and women-owned enterprise contractors completed 7.2 percent, according to Miner’s office.

The project’s second phase has “more ambitious” goals through a project-labor agreement (PLA).

They include the use of 20 percent minority and women-owned business enterprise contractors (12 percent minority and 8 percent women).

The goals also include 20 percent minority hiring, measured in “overall” man or woman hours, and the goal of having 20 percent of those hired for the work include city residents, “measured in overall man or woman hours.”

As part of the PLA, labor unions which plan to work on the project have agreed to place workers who are graduates of JSCB-sponsored or partnered training programs into their apprenticeship programs, assigning them to available work opportunities as part of the school-reconstruction program. The unions will be working with the contractors on the project to “accomplish this goal.”

Syracuse’s JSCB was created by special legislation by New York State in 2006, according to a notice on the JSCB web page at the City of Syracuse’s website. Legislation is required “due to New York State regulations pertaining to municipal financing and borrowing,” the notice said.